Children of Elm Street: A Nightmare Tale
by gamester76
Summary: When Taylor King moves to Springwood, she finds herself at the center of a long & deadly battle between the dream demon Freddy Krueger & a group of teens with special powers: the Dream Warriors. Taylor soon discovers her own special abilities but will she use them to bring down Freddy for good, or unleash something far more dangerous? Favorite & follow for all chapter updates!
1. A New Nightmare

Welcome, dear readers! Today, I am proud to present the first chapter of my new full-length "Nightmare on Elm Street" novel, "Children of Elm Street!" The story follows a young girl as she digs into her new town's twisted history and uncover's the dirty secrets hidden in the dark dreams of the children of Elm Street. Chapters will be published bi-weekly, and reviews are encouraged. In the meantime, don't fall asleep...

EDIT 8/31/15 - It saddens me to write this, but I would like to take a moment to dedicate this novel to Wes Craven, the creator of _Nightmare on Elm Street_ and Freddy Krueger, as well as many other classic horror franchises and characters such as _Scream_, _Last House on the Left, _and _The Hills Have Eyes._ Craven first told us "don't fall asleep" in 1984, but even he could not stay awake forever; Craven fell asleep for the final time on August 30, 2015. Sleep in peace, friend...

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_"Children of Elm Street: A Nightmare Tale", __by Jake Ree__d_

...

PROLOGUE

A NEW NIGHTMARE

May 13th, 2011

Amy Sterling ran down the hallway with her book bag swinging against her back. She had woken up late that morning and missed the bus, causing her to have to run to the high school. By the time she arrived, the bell had rung and she was late for her first class.

Amy was a pretty girl. She was fifteen years old, but she was short for her age and a bit on the skinny side. Her auburn hair came down to her neck and the way she always styled it, the entire left side of her face was covered by it.

She stopped to catch her breath as she came up to her classroom. She was anticipating a stern lecture from Mrs. Shaye about tardiness, and a bunch of dirty looks from her classmates.

Amy took a deep breath and prepared herself to catch all kinds of hell when she opened the door. She looked around the classroom, but nobody was paying any attention to her; they all were looking down at their desks, taking what seemed to be some kind of exam. And instead of Mrs. Shaye, someone else was in his desk; a substitute.

He wore a red polo shirt with a green jacket. Despite the obvious receding of his blonde hair, he was kinda handsome. His glasses made him look younger than he appeared. He had a brown fedora, which looked like it had seen better days. Thin stubble decorated his chin, and his right hand had fingernails that gleamed like polished silver and seemed slightly longer than those on his other hand.

"Nice of you to join us, Ms..." He paused to look at the planning book. "Sterling, I presume?"

Amy nodded meekly.

"Well, Mrs. Shaye is out sick today. I'll be your sub. Here, the other students are taking a quiz." He handed Amy a paper and she took her seat next to her friend, Arnold.

"Best of luck, Amy," the sub said. "It's open-book, by the way, so feel free to use it."

Amy opened her history book and instantly felt tired. It was like a wave of exhaustion had washed over her. It had also suddenly got very hot. It was like someone had stuck a space heater right on front of her desk.

"Hey, Arnold," she said. "Does it seem hot to you?"

Arnold didn't respond; he continued to stare down at his test. Amy closed her eyes as she wiped the sweat from her brow with her hand. There was a crackling sound coming from the back of the room, and it sounded, to Amy, like someone opening a bag of chips very loudly. She opened her eyes and turned around to ask the person messing with it to stop.

It wasn't a bag of chips.

A fire was spreading through the back of the classroom. The students were screaming, stuck in their chairs, flames licking their bodies and melting their flesh from their bones. The students at the front of the room sat and did nothing while their classmates burned alive.

Arnold was also on fire, writhing on the floor next to his desk while the sub merely sat and watched, a look of grim satisfaction in his eyes.

Amy stood up and started to run over to Arnold help him, but she was too late. He doubled over and screamed as his body burnt to ashes right before her eyes. The sound of his scream didn't die until after his flesh was completely gone and the fire finally burnt his lungs, leaving only a still-screaming skeleton with burning organs laying on the floor beneath it.

The fire was spreading faster, and more students were being burned alive by it. Amy ran for the door and touched the handle, but yanked it away when she found it was glowing hot! She looked at her hand and saw welts already forming on her palms. She backed away and, realizing she was going to die, screamed.

"Aaaahhhhh!"

SCREEEECH!

Amy sat bolt upright. She took a deep breath and looked around for the source of the noise only to see she was still sitting at her desk in the classroom. But it wasn't her classroom. At least, she didn't think it was. But if it wasn't, where was she?

The whole room had been blackened and the smell of smoke was heavy in the air. This simply had to be a dream, couldn't it? In fact, she was pretty sure she could still feel the heat of flames coming from somewhere. The desks were blackened and the floor was soft with a layer of ashes. Amy gasped as she realized charred skeletons were sitting in the desks. And moving! The "skeletons" continued to move as if they were doing school work, as if nothing had happened. One skeleton, sitting in Arnold's seat, glanced over at her.

"Amy, are you okay? You're looking a bit pale. Oh, do you know the answer to number seven?" it said in Arnold's voice.

That was when she screamed. Sulfur filler her nostrils and she began fidgeting in her seat. She tried to get up, but was somehow stuck to the seat. Her screams echoed in the burnt out building.

"Somebody get me the fuck out of here!"

SCREEEECH!

That sound again! She snapped her head forward. The substitute teacher was still sitting at the desk. Except, he looked... different.

His face was pitted and red. A large chunk of flesh was missing from his cheek, so his teeth were visible. His right hand was now covered in a dirty glove with metal fingers, each with a blade about five inches long. His shirt was a dirty red and green Christmas sweater and on his head was a battered, brown fedora. The name plate on the desk identified him as, "Mr. Krueger."

"Looks like you missed the fire drill, Ms. Sterling," the sub said. His voice was deep and scary, like a cross between a groan and a growl. Amy sat up, ready to run. Suddenly, the man was upon her, as if he teleported to her. He raised his gloved hand and pressed it to her neck and face. She could feel the index blade pressing down a little too close to her eye. Slivers of her hair fell away after being cut away by the blade. Amy let out a whimper as the man spoke.

"What are you whimpering about? I haven't even cut you yet..."

The man disappeared. Amy looked around for him. She didn't see him and breathed a sigh of relief.

She felt something cold on her backside. Cold steel cut into her shirt and against her back. Something wet pressed itself to Amy's neck. It moved. Amy jerked away from it, but it still found its way back to her.

Krueger pulled his tongue away from her and reached around for her chest. He put one blade inside her collar and began slicing down, the flayed cloth falling away from her small breasts-

"Enough!" Amy screamed as she threw Krueger off of her.

"Feisty little bitch, huh!" Krueger whipped around in front of her and sat down in a chair Amy was sure he had pulled from thin air. He put the elbow of his clawed hand on the desk and put one blade against her neckline.

"Guess what? Come on, guess!"

Amy backed up in surprise and shook her head.

"You're in my world now, bitch. And in my world, you do as I say. And I say..."

Krueger leaned forward so Amy could smell his hot, smelly breath. The holes in his cheeks dripped blood, the metallic odor mixing with his foul breath and making her gag. Amy could see the muscles in his cheek twitch and move as he spoke.

"Die!" Krueger whispered harshly. He drew back his knives and thrust forward. The index blade pressed against Amy's shoulder and she screamed. The blade went in smoothly, slicing skin, flesh, muscles, nerves, scraping past bone. Amy felt the blade scratch her shoulder blade and twitched, causing the blade to twist and open the wound so blood poured out onto the desk. The pain-

...

Amy woke with a start! She sat bolt upright in her bed and let out a loud scream of pain. She instinctively grabbed her shoulder, fully expecting to pull it away covered in blood. Tears flowed down her face as she tried to bury the pain with meditation. It was difficult, but she managed. She examined the spit and found no blood. She was fine.

Amy fought to regain control of herself, finally drying her eyes and calming herself down.

"It's just a dream," she told herself. "You're awake now, and he can't get you." But no matter how many times she told herself that, she didn't believe her own words.

She dried her eyes one last time and looked around her room. The walls were covered in a lot of somewhat girly posters, most of them containing revealing images of Channing Tatum and Taylor Lautner. There were also posters for several horror movies as well, a stark juxtaposition with the bare-chested likes of the Hollywood hunks.

Amy crawled out of her bed and walked towards the comfortably cramped space of her personal bathroom, which was the second of three doors in her room, the other two being the door to the living room and her closet. She closed the door and sat down on the toilet. She looked over and looked on the counter for her bottle of caffeine pills. She popped the lid, poured out two of them, and dry swallowed them. She put the pills back on the counter, reached into her bra and pulled out her cellphone. She scrolled down her contacts and came across the name and number of Cameron.

At the moment, Cameron Miller was asleep in his bed. It was only when his phone began to ring loudly that he was aroused from his peaceful sleep. Cameron wiped his brown hair from his eyes and looked at the display, seeing Amy's name.

"Hey, babe, what's up?" he said sleepily into the phone.

"I had another one," she said to him.

"What happened this time?" Cameron was fully awake now. This was the third night in a row.

"He's getting stronger," Amy cried softly into the phone. "He stabbed my shoulder with his knives. I wasn't bleeding when I woke up, but it still hurt. That's never happened before."

"Well you're awake now," Cameron soothed. "So you're safe. If you want, I can come over and stay up with you."

"No," Amy said with a laugh. "Two nights together was enough; I can't ask you to do it again. Besides, we have school in the morning and you need your sleep."

"Hey, Cunningham's tests are a breeze," Cameron said. "Besides, I don't think I could function properly if I wasn't 100% sure that you were going to be alright."

"Cameron, please," Amy blushed. "Are really going to sneak out a third night in a row for me?"

"For you, and only you, baby," Cameron smiled. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"Thank you," Amy said. "You're the best boyfriend I could ever ask for."

Amy hung up the phone and let out a huge sigh of relief. Cameron had been her boyfriend for almost a year now and it was when the nightmares had started only the previous Friday that things between them started getting serious. When Cameron had come over that first night, she had given herself to him and they spent every waking moment together the following two days, prompting much joking ridiculing from Cameron's immature friends, Dustin and Randal.

Amy cleaned herself up and walked back into her room. She opened her closet door and glanced through it, looking for something to wear for when Cameron got there. She pulled out a loose-fitting purple night-shirt and a long white skirt, and laid them down on the back of a chair. She pulled her shirt and bra off and let her breasts dangle free for a moment before putting on the shirt. She pulled off her underwear before pulling the skirt on, and tossed them in a laundry hamper near the front door. She paused for a moment to listen for her parents, who were sleeping in their own room down the hall. Nothing; all was quiet.

Amy lay back down on her bed and waited for Cameron to climb the tree outside her window and tap the window to let her know he was there. She put a set of headphones into her ear and turned her iPod up to full volume.

"_I'm waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting, and fading, floating away!_

_Waiting and fading, waiting and fading!_

_When you see yourself in a crowded room,_

_Do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?_

_Do you step in line or release the glitch?_

_Do you think she'll sleep with a panic switch?"_

Amy closed her eyes, and felt something wet between her legs. God, Cameron wasn't even here yet and she was already getting excited. Then, she was drowning.

Her bed had become like water, causing her to drop like a stone deep inside it. She took in a sharp breath, nearly filling her lungs with water. She struggled against something that was holding her ankle, trying to drag her down into the depths. She made a grab for… anything. She reached her hands upwards, and her fingertips broke the surface.

She groped around, and found purchase on the edge of her bed. She pulled herself up with all her strength, but it felt like she had suddenly gained about a hundred and seventy-five pounds. She pulled her head above the water and saw Cameron tapping on the window outside, but just tapping. He wasn't banging on the glass, or calling for help. Couldn't he see that she was drowning?

"Help me!" Amy shouted. "Cameron! Save me!" She screamed again before a razor-gloved hand sprang from the water, covered her mouth, and dragged her back down.

Cameron looked in on the sleeping Amy and smiled. God, she looked so cute while she slept. He began to fiddle with the edge of the window, trying to find a way to jimmy it open so he could wake her up gently.

Amy continued thrashing about in the water, feeling the razor-sharp talons cut at her flesh. She could barely see the horrible visage of Krueger through the water, laughing as he cut at her again and again. Amy managed to, somehow, break free of Krueger's grasp and made another bold kick for the surface. She broke the water again and pulled herself over the side. She landed on the floor in a heap and snapped her eyes open.

Cameron was baffled by what he had just seen. One second, Amy was asleep soundly on her bed, and the next she was thrashing about wildly before launching herself to the floor, now soaking wet. Something on the bed moved, rising up to form a humanoid shape behind Amy. A razor blade or something came through the sheet and ripped straight down, and a tall, burnt man emerged, stepping down to the floor with an evil smile. Cameron stared for a long moment before finally coming back to reality and began banging on the window pane, trying to break it and get inside to save Amy.

Soaked from head to toe in a mix of blood and water, Amy looked up at the window and saw Cameron beating on the window. He was shouting something, but Amy couldn't hear him.

"What?" she asked nervously.

"BEHIND YOU!" Cameron shouted.

Amy turned to see Krueger standing mere inches away from her. Krueger jumped her, pinned her to the floor, and began ravishing her. He pulled her skirt up and used his talons to rip away her shirt, letting her breasts fall free.

"I always did like 'em young," Krueger said menacingly. "Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…" He punctuated his sentence with a devious laugh and sliced Amy's arm deep, blood flowing onto the carpeted floor.

Amy screamed and kicked Krueger away. He growled and slashed at her pretty face, cutting away the locks of hair that fell in front of her face and leaving four, perfectly symmetrical, bloody gashes ranging from her forehead, across her eyes and nose, and down her lips, the blood gushing down her alabaster cheek. Amy screamed again just as Cameron finally found the strength to break the glass and her father broke down the door.

Cameron leaped through the window and threw himself on Krueger, who twirled around and backhanded him across the arm with his glove. The force of the blow sent Cameron backwards; he felt the tips of the blades cut him, but he didn't feel them go any deeper than the skin. Krueger whirled back towards Amy, and saw her father cradling her in his arms. Her father looked up at Krueger, who simply smiled.

"You're not real," he said. "You were killed years ago!"

"I got better," Krueger whispered.

"We'll stop you," her father vowed. "We've done it before!"

"We'll see, fucker," Krueger laughed as he vanished, seemingly winking out of existence. "We'll see..."

Krueger's words hung in the air as Cameron stood. Amy's father stared at where Krueger had been, saying nothing.

"Do you know who that was?" He asked Cameron sharply. Cameron just stared off into space, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened. His eyes drifted down to Amy, and then opened wide in terror.

"Amy!" Cameron shouted. Amy's eyes were open, but they had begun rolling back into her head, and her body had started convulsing in her father's arms. Spittle pooled at the corner of her mouth, dripping down her face as her father began screaming!

"No!" her father called out. "AMY!"

Proceed to Next Chapter...


	2. Moving Blues

So first off: apologies for the delay in posting new chapters to my stories. I just moved to a new city, and I've been concentrating more on my original works than my fan-fiction. But in all, only a momentary hiatus: here now is the next chapter to "Children of Elm Street," in which we are introduced to our main character. And more to come after the holidays, folks. In the meantime, don't fall asleep...

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Chapter 1

Moving Blues

August 3rd, 2014

1428 Elm Street. It is a fairly nice house; a rather unremarkable structure, not much different than others in the neighborhood. The front door was red with a small window in the center. The roof was an ugly green color and the walls were a brilliant white. There were three windows in a line on either side of the door, and six more looked down on the lawn from the second floor. A flower trellis climbed up the house just to the right of a small porch.

Michael King smiled as he pulled into the driveway with the Ford Expedition loaded down with his family's belongings. A massive U-Haul van pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

Inside the SUV, Michael looked around at his family. His wife, Kelly, was asleep against the back of her chair while his twelve-year-old son, Carson, was enjoying a movie on his iPhone. Taylor, his niece, was listening to music on an iPhone of her own, oblivious to anything else in the world.

"Guys, we're here. Everyone out." He looked over at Kelly. "That means you too, babe," he said, giving his wife a poke in the belly. She awoke with a start.

Taylor opened the door handle and stepped outside to look at the house. Taylor was seventeen, about 5' 4" with hair that was blond as butter, with a full, curvy figure.

Carson, her cousin, was about an inch taller than Taylor, despite being about five years her junior. He had curly brown hair, which made him look five years older than he really was; the only giveaway was the obvious fact that Carson was still going through puberty. Pimples dotted his face and his voice cracked when he spoke.

Taylor came around to the rear of the vehicle and popped open the cargo door. Carson wedged in next to her and grabbed a box labeled "Carson's Room." Taylor followed behind with another box, labeled "Taylor."

The U-Haul was backing into the driveway, pulling to a stop against the garage. Michael was directing them back as Taylor made her way up the steps of the new house behind Carson. Kelly was just opening up the door, and the three of them stepped inside.

The interior was just as pretty as the exterior. The stairs were directly in front of the door in the entrance hall, which opened up directly into the living room on the left side of the door. It was massive, and beyond that, Taylor could see a dining room with a beautiful crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

"Oh my God," Kelly gasped. "It's even more beautiful in person!"

Carson looked around, and merely shrugged. "It's cool. Nice and spacious," he said.

"Your rooms are upstairs," Kelly instructed. "You and Taylor can fight over which room is whose."

Carson turned to the stairs and bounded up as fast as he could, finding himself at the top landing. There was a door to the immediate right at the top, and another directly across from it. The landing ran parallel to the stairs with a wooden banister between the two. Two more doors lined the wall further down, and the landing cornered sharply back over the stairs and the entrance hall, where the final door stood off to the left.

Carson opened up the first door, which turned out to be the bathroom. He closed it and checked the door on the opposite side, linen closet. The middle door contained another set of stairs leading up to the attic of the house, leaving the final two doors at the front to be the bedrooms.

Taylor had already claimed the last room, the one directly over the stairs.

"I guess I'll take this one," Carson said to himself as he took the opposite door.

Taylor looked around her new room. There was a closet with a set of bi-fold doors, which she thought was neat. The window was one of those with a sill big enough to sit on, and the view of the street was particularly stunning. She set her stuff down on the ground and returned down stairs.

As she hit the bottom landing, a strange odor fouled her nostrils. Taylor held her wrist to her nose and uttered a sound of disgust. She turned around and noticed, for the first time, a door near the end of the corridor underneath the stairs. She approached the door and opened it, the smell suddenly becoming stronger.

"Uncle Mike," she called. But by the time the words left her mouth, the stench had dissipated.

"Can it hold on a second, Taylor?" Michael bumped into the door frame as he and Carson moved the couch inside. Helping them was a kid with short, spikey blond hair and a baby-face. He looked to be about Taylor's age, and as tall as her uncle. Michael led them into the living room where they dropped the couch seemingly dead center. The boy quickly moved past Mike and Carson to get back outside; it was almost like he didn't want to be in the house longer than he had to.

The boy stayed to help, however. An hour later, they had the entire moving truck empty of furniture, and all that was left were stacks of boxes with everyone's clothes and personal stuff inside them.

Taylor was moving some of her boxes into the house when she saw Kelly talking with the kid who had helped them get everything inside. Taylor walked quickly in an attempt to avoid contact, but Kelly spotted her.

"Taylor, come over here for a second, please!" There was no avoiding it now. Taylor dropped her box by the door and walked over to her aunt.

"Taylor, this is John. He lives down the street, and he's going to be a senior at Springwood High this year, too."

"Nice to meet you," John said as he extended a hand. Taylor shook it, but responded only with a smile.

"Forgive her for being silent," Kelly apologized. "She's had a rough year so far."

"Moving to a new neighborhood can be rough, but once you're at school and surrounded by new friends, it'll get better."

"Well, better get back to it," Kelly said excitedly. "This new house is just adorable!"

"Yeah," adorable," John said with a hint of venom dripping from his words. It was then that Taylor noticed John tried his best to look at the house as little as possible.

"Nice to meet you," Taylor said sincerely.

"Yeah, well, I should get going," John said. He turned away and left at a rather quick pace.

"Well, here's something for your time," Kelly said as she pulled a twenty from her wallet.

A dismissive wave was John's only reply from halfway down the block.

Carson had stacked all his boxes near his closet and began unpacking one labeled XBOX first.

That was one thing he would miss about their apartment in Manhattan was playing XBOX with his friends. He would miss a lot of things about Manhattan; his friends, the hideout spots, everything. Even the people he did odd jobs for, which was how he had accumulated a small wealth of $1300 dollars.

The move had come as a surprise to both him and Taylor; three months ago, they were living comfortably in their Manhattan home. Then Taylor's parent, Carson's aunt and uncle, died and then they stayed in New Jersey for a while before going back to Manhattan to move all their stuff.

Now they were unpacking things in a new house in a new town. Things had changed in the last several weeks, and it had been rough on all of them. Carson figured he would handle the transition well enough, but Taylor was a girl, and her emotions got to her easier. He was genuinely concerned for his cousin, and wondered at times whether she was suicidal or not.

Carson heard footsteps and turned to see his mom standing in his doorway.

"Getting everything put away, baby?"

"I'm fine," Carson said.

"That's good," Kelly said, clearly having been hoping for a bigger response. "Well, I think we're going to order a pizza for dinner. Is that alright?"

"Yeah, it's cool. Just no mushrooms," Carson reached into a box and pulled out a long, gray Ethernet cable. He plugged it into the back of his XBOX and began running it against the baseboards around the room. Sensing that she wasn't going to get any more out of her son, Kelly turned and left.

Taylor was putting up her posters when her aunt walked in. Taylor didn't say a word as Kelly shut the door behind her.

"I like the room so far," Kelly beamed.

"Thanks," was Taylor's simple response before returning to silence.

"Still down in the gutters about the move?"

Taylor put another piece of tape on a Star Trek poster and nodded.

"Look, I know this whole last year wasn't easy for you: losing your parents, moving here, leaving your old life behind. But you didn't just lose your mother; I lost my sister. It's gonna be hard on both of us for a while, so if there's anything you want to talk about…"

"Maybe a little warning would have been nice," Taylor mumbled under her breath.

"We told you we were moving," Kelly said sharply.

"Yeah, a week before I came home to find that truck backing into our driveway!" Taylor pointed out the window at the U-Haul truck still parked outside.

"If I had the choice, I would have stayed in Forest Green!"

"Well you didn't have a choice! I wish there was another way, but in order to be able to support you, your uncle had to take this new job, he had to start immediately, and we had to move."

"So I'm just a burden on you? Thanks that makes me feel so much better!" Taylor shouted.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," Kelly said sounding apologetic. "Taylor, I love you. Your uncle loves you. Your cousin loves you. If we didn't love you, we wouldn't have taken you in. Your only other choice was foster care, and ask your uncle Mike how fun that is."

Taylor just shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said as she looked down at the floor.

"I know," Kelly said. "Now, we're gonna order pizza for dinner tonight because the utilities can't get turned on until tomorrow. Also, tomorrow is when you and Carson go enroll into school."

Taylor nodded as Kelly left the room. Once she was gone, Taylor walked over and closed the door. The moment the door clicked, Taylor dropped down to the floor, pulled her knees into her and began sobbing.

Moving from Forest Green was one thing, but coupling that on top of the death of your parents was something that was almost unbearable. Tears trickled down her face as memories of her folks came flooding back. The winters spent in the Forest Green condos on the waterfront; the summers camping in the woods where her father told her the old stories and legends until her mom told him to shut his trap.

She remembered that it wasn't always called Forest Green; before, it was Crystal Lake. The name had been changed a few years back.

She also remembered their deaths back in May. They told her it was a car accident, but when she saw their bodies after, they both looked like they had gone through a paper-shredder, and she knew that _he_, Jason Voorhees, had killed them both.

But there was nothing she could do, and by that evening, her aunt and uncle had come to live with her until the school year was out, then it would be back to their house in lower Manhattan. Taylor wound up sleeping on the couch for a month, and since money was tight, Mike had to find a new job to support all four of them.

But once he got that job, it was no problem quickly finding this place in Ohio. Carson was going to start seventh grade, so he would have a few years to make some good friends before being thrust into the jungle that was high school. And since Kelly was a housewife, the move would be almost unnoticed by her.

But for Taylor, leaving everything she had grown up with behind when she was so close to graduating with all her friends was almost unbearable. And then moving to a new town twice over the summer and starting a new school during her senior year already made her feel like a complete outsider. She was not looking forward to this school year at all. Everything about this last summer was all wrong.

That was why she had been remarkably silent for the duration of the trip. She was usually a very outgoing young girl, very outspoken about many things. She normally made friends easily, but with everything that had happened since May, it was almost like she had changed completely as a person. Carson had even remarked that the only thing separating her from an emo chick now was a lack of the proper clothing.

All of this was going through Taylor's mind as she wept on the floor, but she knew she couldn't keep dwelling on these things. She needed to get out of this house. She couldn't remain a prisoner of her emotions for the rest of the summer (what little remained of it). If nothing else, she could scope out her new surroundings for a place to hide of the shit ever hit the fans. But first, she needed to finish unpacking her room.

She pulled open all the clothes boxes and placed them on hangers inside her closet. Once that was done, she grabbed a small black lockbox, about a foot wide and tall and two-and-a-half feet long, and placed it on the floor under a shoe-shelf at the bottom of the closet. This lockbox contained all sorts of memorabilia from Forrest Green, most of it pictures and mementos from her friends.

She took out her key ring and found the one for the box. She opened it and pulled out a picture of her friends Davey and Carrie, who stood outside of a large warehouse market called S-Mart, both of them tucked into winter clothes. Davey was leaning over and planting a big kiss on Carrie's cheek. Taylor remembered taking this picture that winter. It was about a month before her parents died.

Taylor put the picture away and closed the lockbox. She put away more clothes and began sorting through her massive book collection, which included classic and modern literature, collected edition comics, video game strategy guides, Star Wars books, stolen school textbooks, and written-in journals, and tossed them all on her large floor-to-ceiling shelf.

Just as she was finishing up, there was another knock at her door, but it was less of a "permission to enter" knock than it was a "hey, I'm coming in, hope you're dressed" knock. Carson opened the door without waiting for Taylor to grant him permission to enter, and continued laying the cable around the baseboards.

"Setting up your XBOX already?" Taylor asked.

"Have you not?" Carson shot back. "That's priority one, cousin." Taylor laughed, wiping away the last of the tears from her eyes. The little dweeb always had a way of bringing a smile to her face.

"Well hurry up, bitch! Let's not wait for the grass to grow! I want to play some Need for Speed before sunset!"

Taylor rolled over to the other side of her bed and grabbed her XBOX out of the box. Maybe this move wouldn't be so bad after all.

Proceed to Next Chapter...


	3. New Kid in School

Happy New Year, my ghoulish friends! Today, Chapter 2 of Children of Elm Street has been posted, the first chapter of the Nea Year! Hopefully, the story will be fully complete by this time next year, and I can focus on my other stories! So sit back and relax, but don't fall asleep...

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Chapter 2

New Kid in School

Carson sat on the porch roof with his back against the house. The sun had been up for an hour or so, but Carson had been awake longer than that. In fact, he barely slept at all the night before. It wasn't that he was distracted by his computer or his video games; the internet had not been hooked up yet, so there was no distraction there. He just couldn't sleep. He either couldn't fall asleep, or something kept waking him up.

He chalked up his insomnia to the move, as well as the fact that he was hungry, which explained the pizza box lying next to him. When the final slice of the cold pizza was in his stomach, he crawled back into the house through the window to his room. Before he went to sleep the night before, his mom had reiterated that he and Taylor needed to go and enroll at their schools today.

Carson was looking forward to that as much as Taylor was, which was amounted to "not at all." However, it was something that needed to be done, and there was no reason to delay it any longer than necessary.

The first thing Taylor heard that morning was Carson knocking on the door before coming in. She noticed that he was the only person who did that, entering her room without waiting for permission, but she didn't care; if she wanted privacy, she'd have locked her door. However, that didn't mean she was always pleased when he did so at an ungodly hour of the morning.

"Unless you have a very good reason for waking me up at…" Without so much as lifting her head, Taylor opened one eye and glanced at her clock before closing it again. "…8:30 in the morning, you will not live to see 8:30 tonight."

"You need to get around so we can go to the school and get enrolled," Carson stated as he yanked Taylor's bed sheets back. Taylor squealed, fully awake now, as she tried and failed to grab the sheets and pull them back! Given that all she was wearing was a white spaghetti-strap shirt and a pair of panties, it suddenly became extremely cold!

"Ah! Okay, I'm awake, you little turd-burglar!" Taylor laughed as she drew her legs up to her chest in an attempt to keep warm, but doing so pulled her panties into a full front-to-back wedgie, giving Carson an unwanted eyeful.

"Gross," he said to himself. Suddenly realizing what had happened, Taylor sat bolt upright and covered herself with a pillow, her cheeks becoming extremely flushed with embarrassment.

"Just get dressed," Carson said as he shook his head.

...

Dustin Wallace sat at one of the outdoor lunch tables at Springwood High School as he waited for his Randal to show up. They were picking up their schedules today, so the shop would be closed until noon anyway, but Dustin wanted to get back as quickly as possible. The school was swarming with students trying to do the same, as well as locate their classes before the first day; it was making Dustin claustrophobic. And the fact that Randy was taking his sweet ass time getting here wasn't helping matters at all.

"Dusty!" There was a shout from behind Dustin, and he instinctively turned. There was a young kid with close-cropped hair that made him look like a member of a late-nineties boy band and wore a tight-fitting Superman shirt to advertise his 5'11" athletic build. Randal also had in his hands a large McDonald's sack.

"I have food," Randal said as he dropped the bag in front of his cousin.

"You have solidified grease," Dustin said as he pushed the bag away. "How can you eat that stuff?"

"Like this," Randal said as he pulled a burger out of the bag and began devouring it before he had completely removed the wrapper.

"Disgusting," Dustin said as a pickle slid from the burger onto the table. Despite being a near mirror image of his cousin, Dustin was a bit bigger than Randy and also had square-frame glasses, which he never took off. His hair was short and curly, which seemed to drive girls (and women of a certain age) absolutely wild.

"Have you seen Cameron?" Randal asked with a mouthful of cheeseburger.

"Not since he went home on Friday," Dustin answered. "He has a shift today, so we'll see him then."

"I know, I just-" Randal stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a pretty young blonde girl walking towards their table through the throngs of people. She had this aura that spoke of insecurity, but she seemed nice and approachable enough. She was kinda cute, too.

The girl approached their table and stared at Randal for a moment. Randal smiled wide, but too late realized his mouth was still full of chewed up burger. His face dropped like a stone, and he quickly swallowed; however, he nearly choked on the sandwich as it went down and he was thrown into a coughing fit.

"Gross," Dustin said to his cousin.

"Uh, you wouldn't happen to know where the main office is, do you?" the girl asked.

"Yeah," Dustin said as Randal took a long, loud sip from his drink to wash down the burger. "From this end of the building, go inside the double doors and follow the blue lockers around the library and take the stairs on the right."

"Thank you," the girl said. She turned back to Randal, who was busy using the collar of his shirt to give his teeth a quick clean. Caught red-handed in the act, Randal stopped dead and looked back up at the girl, and smiled a real smile this time.

The girl, however, didn't smile back right away; instead, she merely said, "So did you spit or swallow?" She then cracked a thin smile and turned away towards the building. Dustin was having a hard time trying to keep his laughter contained; he failed.

"Somebody call 911, Randy just got burned!"

"Fuck you!" Randal shouted, throwing his burger at his cousin. The sandwich went wide right and beamed a stick-thin redheaded woman, who kinda resembled Meryl Streep, and whom everyone knew as Mrs. Webber, right in the side of the head. The bun fell to the ground, but the cheesy, ketchup-smeared patty remained in place. The woman reached up and grabbed the greasy sandwich, sliding it off the side of her face.

"A statistical analysis of the situation indicates the following solution," Randal said as he saw the woman searching around for the culprit. "Get the fuck out of dodge."

Dustin nodded and slowly got up from the table. The woman looked around in their direction, but a massive crowd crossed her field of vision, allowing Dustin and Randal to escape with their lives.

When Taylor had arrived at Springwood High after dropping off Carson at the middle school, she had been kinda lost. This was understandable, as the school campus was pretty big.

Built on a large portion of land near the edge of town, Springwood High School had been around since the sixties. The main building was a massive two-story tall structure, with a covered open path leading from one side of the building to another building behind it that was equally tall, but didn't have windows like the main building.

The parking lot took up nearly an entire block. It curved around a small fishing pond that was nestled in a lightly wooded area directly in front of the school. Looking around, she tried to find someone to ask for directions, and who looked like they would actually direct her in the right way.

That was when she had seen the two guys sitting at the table. One wore glasses and had short, curly hair while the other was more athletic and had shorter hair.

The shorter haired one had been kinda cute. He also had a McDonalds sack and she thought she might ask for a fry or two. Or, shay may not even have asked at all and just taken a few anyway.

Turns out, the guy was also a complete and total dork. But she was really amused by his apparent absent-mindedness; that was why she made the joke at his expense, then made her quick exit. Perhaps if he saw her in the hallway at school, he might remember her. She knew that she would.

Taylor watched the pair as they ducked through crowds until they were out of sight of the woman they had hit before she turned to the building before her and went inside.

Carla Miller left her cell phone inside the main office when she went to make copies of a few papers for Principal Webber, which is why she answered it with haste when she returned to find it ringing loudly on the counter.

"Hi, mom," Carla said into the phone as she cradled it on her shoulder. "No, I can totally talk," she said.

At that moment, Ms. Webber walked into the office with a paper towel, wiping away a bunch of grease off her face. Carla looked at Ms. Webber and let out a chuckle.

"What are you doing, sweetie?" Carla's mom asked from the other end of the line.

"I'm doing schedule pick-up at the school," Carla responded. She set her papers down and took the paper towel from Ms. Webber so she could help her wipe off her face.

"I'd rather be doing that," her mom joked. "We're getting ready to bust a meth lab." Carla let out a laugh as she mentally pictured her mom, who was a police officer, donning riot gear as she chatted on the phone. She always called Carla before an operation, just in case she didn't come back from it. But her mom was a professional at what she did, so there was always little worry from Carla's end.

"Sounds exciting. Where is this one?" Carla asked her mother.

"This one's out west of Springwood, near that old factory." A shiver went up Carla's spine, but she didn't show it for the sake of Ms. Webber.

"Well you just be careful, mom," Carla said into the phone.

"I will, baby. I love you," she said.

"I love you too, mom," Carla said as she hung up the phone.

"Your mom?" Ms. Webber asked as she took the paper towel from Carla's hands. Carla nodded.

"She's getting ready to go raid a suspected meth lab," Carla said. "Why are there condiments on your face?"

"Some kid hit me with a cheeseburger, then ran off." Ms. Webber said. "Probably some senior who thinks he can get away with it just because it's summer. Anyway, what's first, Ms. Miller?"

Carla let out an excited giggle. "Ms. Miller. It sounds so weird to actually hear it."

"I know how you feel," Ms. Webber said. "Just like you, I remember being a student here years ago. Although, for you, that was only five years ago. Me, it was nearly three decades ago. And now to actually teach here, it's just surreal."

"Technically, you're the principal now, Ms. Webber," Carla corrected.

"Carla, you're my assistant principal now; you don't have to call me 'Ms. Webber' anymore. Just stick with Lisa, okay? So what's first?"

"Well," Carla looked over the files in her hand. "We have a new student who is completing her enrollment today. Out-of-state transfer, it looks like."

"What's the name?" Lisa asked.

"Taylor King," Carla said. "Oh, it looks like she's coming in now." Carla motioned beyond the large floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows that made up the wall of the office overlooking the student lobby. A young girl with blonde hair was making her way up the steps.

As Taylor had suspected from her directions, the office was on the second floor of the school, directly above what she deduced as the entrance lobby. A set of stairs led up to a platform where the office entrance was; Taylor climbed them and walked through the glass door. Two women were standing near a desk; one of them Taylor recognized as the woman who got hit with the burger. Taylor considered informing her that she still had a glob of ketchup under her ear.

"You must be Taylor," the redheaded woman said. "I'm Ms. Webber, the principal here at Springwood High School. And this," Ms. Webber motioned to Carla. "This is Ms. Miller, the assistant principal."

"Hi," Taylor said.

"Would you kindly step into my office here, please, and we'll continue with your enrollment." Taylor followed Ms. Webber into her office, who then shut the door behind them. Ms. Webber took a seat on the other side of a desk that was somewhat disorganized. The wall behind her was filled with certificates, medals, and a host of other prizes. Near them, on another wall, were pictures of a younger Ms. Webber with a rather handsome young man. None of the pictures gave him an identity, but several showed the pair getting rather romantic.

"You just moved here, correct? From…?" Ms. Webber looked at the file in her hands. "New Jersey, it says. That's quite the displacement. What made your parents decide to move?"

"My aunt and uncle," Taylor corrected. "It was a whole host of things; this summer hasn't exactly been easy."

"Your parents died, didn't they?" Ms. Webber asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "Right before summer started. My aunt and uncle picked me up and took me back with them. Then, we moved down here yesterday."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Lots of people, especially in this town, have lost loved ones."

"Have you?" Taylor asked. Ms. Webber became silent as she thought about the question, and then answered.

"Yes, I lost several of my friends when I was younger. There was this string of suicides in town when I was about your age. But, it's all over now, and I have my husband to help me through it."

"Is that him in the pictures?" Taylor asked. MRs. Webber turned back to the wall and smiled.

"Yup, that's my Jessie. He was my high school sweetheart. We've been together ever since."

"Awesome," Taylor said as Mrs. Webber began filling out Taylor's enrollment forms.

Proceed to Next Chapter...


	4. Jake

Welcome back, fellow ghouls! The story of Taylor King and the Children of Elm Street continues with the newest chapter. Last time, we saw the reintroduction of not one, but THREE classic "Elm Street" characters (two of them were pretty expressly obvious, but bonus points if you caught the more obscure third), and this chapter reintroduces yet another one who will play a more central role as the story progresses. And he won't be the last... Who is next, I cannot say, but it's going to be a real scream. Until then, don't fall asleep...

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Jake**

Nearly an hour later, Taylor walked out of the school. After enrolling, Ms. Webber had given Taylor a tour of the campus and showed her where her classrooms would be.

Taylor pulled her phone from her pocket and pulled up Carson's number. She placed the phone to her ear and waited as it rang.

"Yolo," Carson said after the fourth ring.

"Hey, did you finish up at the middle school yet?"

"Yeah, I'm all finished. I'm walking with some of the kids I met down to Arquette Boulevard. Apparently, there's an arcade and some shops out that way."

"What did I tell you about going off without me?" Taylor snapped angrily into the phone.

"Uhm, you didn't," Carson answered truthfully.

"I didn't?" Taylor thought back to when they had left the house and, sure enough, remembered that she actually did think those words, she hadn't said them aloud. "Well don't do it again!" Taylor said frustrated. "I'll find my way down there, just don't move!"

"Oh, you just-" Taylor accidentally hung up before Carson could finish with the directions. No matter; she would find the shop on her own.

As she began walking down the street, she heard the noise of an engine behind her. She turned and saw a midnight blue 90s-model Chevy Camaro roll up on the street beside her. The dark window was rolled down and a rather handsome young man was revealed to be in the driver's seat. A mop of unruly, curly brown hair covered the top of his head, almost coming down over his blue eyes. The car slowed as it approached Taylor, and the man looked directly at her.

"Hey," Taylor said. The man stopped and looked up, a smile danced across his lips as he spotted Taylor.

"Hey," the man echoed.

"Can I help you?" Taylor asked.

"I was actually wondering if I could help _you._ You look a little lost."

"Well," Taylor wrestled with whether or not she should ask him for directions. "I'm kinda looking for Arquette Boulevard. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you?"

"I do, actually," he replied. "I'm heading over that way now; that's where I work."

"And where do you work?" Taylor interrogated, a bit skeptical of the man. For all she knew, he was going to kidnap her and rape her, leaving her body in a ditch on the outskirts of town.

"This comic shop near Pico Street," he answered almost immediately.

"That's actually where I need to go," Taylor said in surprise. "I'm trying to meet my cousin and his friends there."

"Hop in, I'll give you a ride," the man offered. Taylor ran around the front of the car and slid into the passenger-side, shutting the door as the man pulled back into the road.

"I'm Jacob Daniel," the man introduced as Taylor buckled in. "Most people call me Jake, or Dan," he continued as he brushed the hair out of his face before extending his arm to shake.

"I'm Taylor. Taylor King," she said. She accepted Jake's hand and shook it. It was then that Taylor noticed all the small scars on his hands and face. They were straight and parallel, almost as if they happened at the same time.

"How did you get the scars?" Taylor asked. Jake suddenly became conscious of the scars and moved the hand down and away from Taylor.

"Just some scars from when I was younger. I don't remember much of it," he said. "So you're a comic fan, eh? Favorite series?" Jake asked as he drove down the road.

"Spider-Man 2099," Taylor said. "I love Peter David!"

"You like the classic series, or the new one better?"

"Classic. I haven't read the new series yet."

"Why not?"

"Remember my cousin I told you about?" Jake nodded. "I just moved here with him and my aunt and uncle-"

"Kinda like Peter Parker," Jake noted quickly.

"Yeah," Taylor said with a smile. "Anyway, because of the move, I haven't been able to get any of my comics in, like, a month. Then when I called him just now, he said he found that shop on Arquette."

Jake smiled again. "I know the place all too well. I've worked there for over a decade."

"Really? How old are you?"

"I turned twenty-four earlier this year," Jake explained.

"Really? You don't look a day over seventeen," Taylor noted. "You're not a vampire, are you?" Jake rolled his eyes and stuck his hand out the window; it neither sparkled, nor burnt to ash. "Okay, I'm satisfied; you can pull your arm back in now," she said before the pair burst into laughter.

"So, you said you were new in town? Well, let me be among the first to welcome to Springwood," Jake said. "It's not the greatest town on America, but it's a decent place. Lots of kids, ya know? Make friends easy."

"We'll see about that," Taylor mumbled.

"So, you still in high school?"

"Yeah, I'm starting my senior year in a couple weeks."

"Ouch," Jake said. "Moved to a new town at the start of your last year of school? Your aunt and uncle had to know how tough that would be."

"Yeah, they know," Taylor said softly.

"Well, I know just about all the kids in town, so I'll make sure they treat you nice."

"Thanks," Taylor said. "So what else is there to do in Springwood?"

"Not much, really," Jake said as if just now realizing it. "Most of the kids hang out at the Springwood Diner after school. It's got this nostalgic, 80's feel to it, so it's kinda cool. And then there's the comic shop and an arcade on Arquette Boulevard. Lots of kids come in there. There's a movie theater over on Haley Ave.

"But if you really want to have a night out, hop on the highway for ten miles and you're in the heart of downtown Cincinnati."

"Awesome," Taylor exclaimed. "So how much further to the shop?"

"We're here," Jake said as he pulled into a mini-mall parking lot. Jake parked the car right in front of a shop near the back corner of the lot. Above their heads was a massive sign; it was a little larger than most others in the area, but very eye catching. The image featured a waft of vibrant, multi-colored smoke rising from a fissure in the dirt-covered ground, a set of gleaming blue eyes glaring from within.

Taylor thought it was beautiful.

"Wow," she said. "And this is where you work?"

"Yup, welcome to Dream Master Comics and Collectibles."

To Be Continued...

1/30/15


	5. Dream Master Comics

Chapter 4

Dream Master Comics

Randal sat behind the counter in the store reading the latest issue of "Superman Unchained" as Dustin milled about the store. It was a quiet day, not surprising given that it was near the end of summer and school would be starting back up in a week. But as it was, Randy was quite content with the massive amount of boredom he was enduring. All he had to do was sit on his ass and he earned nearly $9 an hour to do so. And every once in a while, he sold a comic or twelve. It was awesome.

Whereas Randal's outlook was more relaxed, Dustin had a more active approach to the job. He liked always having something to do, whether it was sweeping the floor, chatting with other nerds about upcoming releases, or even dusting the racks. But Mondays were always slower than hell. And Dustin hated working Mondays because hardly anybody ever came into the store.

The front door opened and a chime sounded. Without looking up from his magazine, Randal said drolly, "Good afternoon, and welcome to Dream Master Comics and Collectibles."

"What's up, guys," Jake said as he walked into the store. Dustin and Randal both looked up as Jake came in with a beautiful blond girl tagging along behind him, whom Randal recognized instantly as the girl who asked for directions earlier, and whom he had made a complete ass of himself in front of. Fearing she might recognize him, he buried his face deeper into his comic, his nose practically touching the pages.

"Hey, Jake," Dustin said. "Who's the chick?"

"I'm Taylor," Taylor said.

"Yeah, I think I remember you from the school this morning," Dustin said. "My name's Dustin. The lump behind the counter is my cousin Randy."

"Pleasure to meet you," Randy said nervously as he gave a dismissive wave from behind his magazine.

Jake walked over to Randal and casually pushed the magazine down so Taylor could see Randy's face.

"Randal, be nice and introduce yourself to the new girl." Jake said with a smirk.

"Alright," Randy said without looking up too much. "I'm Randal. I'm a minimum wage slave to the evil corporate conglomerate known as Dream Master Comics, LLC. On the side, I also write a comic series that is published under the print label of said corporate conglomerate."

"Good enough," Jake said, the cue for Randal to go back to his magazine. He wasn't back at it for very long before Taylor walked up to the counter.

"Listen, have you seen a young kid, about twelve-years-old, short brown hair, walking around here?"

"Yeah, he and his buddies went over next door to the arcade about five minutes ago." Taylor put a finger on the top of the magazine and lowered it again so she could get a good look at Randal's face, which instantly blushed a deep crimson.

"Hey, I've seen you before," Taylor remarked. "You were the one who threw that burger and hit the principal."

"You saw that?" Randal nervously asked with an audible gulp. Taylor nodded, but brought a finger to her lips to indicate she wouldn't tell. Randal smiled and gestured around the store.

"So, are you big into comics?" Randal asked her.

"I haven't been able to get my issues in a month," she complained after nodding wildly.

"Well, if you want to, you can fill out a pull sheet. Write down all the comics you want and we'll hold them for you. You get 25% off your subscriptions, too."

"I'll do that," Taylor said. She grabbed the paper Randal motioned to and filled it out as she walked around the store. The entire back wall was stacked floor-to-ceiling with comic storage boxes, likely all filled with back-issues. They were labeled A-Z, but some of them also had a series name printed on them, such as "X-Men" or "Superman."

On the side opposite the counter were three magazine stands where new issues were kept. Marvel and DC each had a rack, while other companies, such as IDW and Dark Horse, shared the final rack. In the center of the room were several wire shelves that contained graphic novels, movie memorabilia, and other collectibles like Funko POP vinyl toys, action figures, and vintage toys.

Behind the counter were five rows of wire shelves mounted to the wall, containing dozens and dozens of graded comics. Rare and popular issues of older comics were lined on the shelf, each graded and encased in plastic for preservation.

"This place is awesome!" Taylor said aloud. The door chimed behind them and a young man with spiky blonde hair and a teal shirt walked into the store.

"Hey, Arnold!" Randal screamed. "Coming in for your pulls?" Randal pulled a massive bag out from behind the counter and slapped it in front of Arnold.

"Nice. And you added 'Legendary Star-Lord' to the list like I asked?"

"The moment we got it, because I knew you'd burn the store down if I didn't." Randal laughed as he sauntered over to the computer. He typed something in as he continued talking to Taylor. "I'm glad you like it, Taylor. We've all worked very hard to make it what it is today."

Randal turned his attention to the iPad next to him on the counter, tapping a few buttons and bringing up the point-of-sale system. After a moment or so, a look of confusion crossed his face, which quickly turned into one of rage.

"What the fuck?" He exclaimed as he tapped random keys. "Goddamnit. Jake, the modem is down again!"

"Shit," Jake muttered. "Arnold, are you paying cash?" Arnold nodded and Jake pulled a key out of his pocket, throwing it to Randy so he could open the cash drawer.

"Why doesn't your mom just use a different internet provider?" Dustin asked Jake.

"Because my mom is cheap, that's why!" Jake shouted.

Jake then turned to Taylor. "Uh, my mom kind of _owns_ the store. The writing Randall mentioned, we also publish our own comic series'."

Jake led Taylor over to a narrow shelf and pointed to a small row with the label "Dream Child Comics". There were several titles. "The Phantom Prowler," which was an action comic featuring on the cover a menacing looking man with rather large firearms covering his torso. Taylor took notice that Dustin's name appeared on the cover as writer.

"And then there's 'The Adventures of Lowrek, Prince of Elves, and William of Weston, the Wizard Master.' It's more of a fantasy series."

Another one, titled "T.J.K.", featured a punk-rock-looking girl with leather clothes and a pair of switchblades standing between an oversized black man with muscles bigger than his head, and a small scrawny kid with a teardrop tattoo beneath his eye.

There was another one next to it: "The Dream Warriors."

"That one is a bestseller," Jake said. "It follows these kids who, when they fall asleep, have special powers, and they use them to keep their peers from falling into the hands of this evil wizard who stalks people while they sleep."

Taylor picked up an issue of the comic with a giant #1 on the cover and flipped it open. The first page featured panels of a young girl about her age with blond hair carrying a smaller child through a dark house. When they stopped, the girl realized that the child in her arms had shriveled up and was now just a mummy, her face barely more than skin stretched over a skeleton.

Taylor, hooked, flipped the page, but found only a double-splash credits page, with the title "Dream Warriors" spread across the top and the contributor credits near the bottom. Credited as writer was Jake's name.

Taylor looked at all of the comics. On the "Lowrek" comic was Randal's name. As before, Dustin's name was inscribed on the cover of "Phantom Prowler", though another named Mark was credited as creator. Taylor looked back at "Dream Warriors." Alongside Jake's name was another: Alice Johnson.

"You guys write these?"

"Yeah, we do," Dustin said. "We each write our own series, and we all have a different friend who does the art. And we publish them all ourselves. They sell like crazy."

"Which one do you write?" Taylor asked Jake

"I don't. I do the artwork for 'T.K.J.' This one, here," Jake picked up the comic and handed it to Taylor.

The door chimed again and a young man with short brown hair and a skinny body entered just as Arnold left.

"What is happening, my peeps!" he shouted loudly as he walked in.

"The goddamn modem crashed again," Randy moaned. "That's what's up. Go fix it."

"Well that's problem number one," the boy said, pointing directly at Randal. Randal merely flipped off the kid, who quickly moved towards the back room.

"Just get the system back up, Cameron," Jake commanded. "And then start sorting through the new issues. Those did come in today, right Dustin?"

"Yeah, this morning. Right before Randy and I went on lunch."

Cameron was just about to walk into the backroom when he noticed Taylor for the first time.

"Who's the chick?" Cameron asked.

"You know you're the second person to ask me that today, right?" Jake laughed at Taylor's frustration.

"Am I really? Well, I'm Cameron." Cameron extended his hand to Taylor.

"I'm Taylor," she said, shaking his hand. "I'm new in town."

"Nice to meet you, Taylor. I'm sure you're gonna like it just fine here."

Taylor looked back at Randal, who was scratching the inside of his ear with his pinky. He pulled the finger away and stared at it for a moment. He started to wipe the earwax on his sleeve, but noticed Taylor looking at him and stopped, smiling at her wide.

"Yeah, I think I am, too."

Proceed to next chapter...


	6. The House on Elm Street

Happy Friday the 13th, loyal readers! Unfortunately, no "Friday the 13th" stories from me this year (although, a preview of an upcoming one may be posted on November 13th, so keep a look out). Instead, here is Chapter 5 of "Children of Elm Street." Chapter 6 will be posted on March 13th (another Friday the 13th), but on February 27th, I will post the first "Interlude", which will be a series of breaks in the narrative that will keep Freddy in the story since it goes for stretches without him. These "interludes" were originally short stories from a planned separate, but related, anthology series that I decided to fold into the main story, much like my story "The Last Meal." These interludes will be posted periodically throughout the remainder of the story, but for now, here is Chapter 5. Don't fall asleep...

* * *

CHAPTER 5

The House on Elm Street

Dustin escorted the last customer out the door and locked it behind him as he returned to the store. Randal and Jake were counting down the drawers while Taylor helped Cameron pack boxes of Dream Child comics. A large sack lay on the counter, containing around $50 in comics, with another containing Dream Child-series back-issues that had been gifted to Taylor by the group. She had also set up a pull-list so she could keep up-to-date on her series'.

Taylor had spent the rest of the day at the shop and, when the arcade had closed an hour earlier, Carson and his new buddies were driven back to the comic shop, where Taylor was filling out an application to work there. Even now, she was helping the group close up shop for the evening while Carson sat outside with one of his new friends, despite the rest of them having long ago gone home.

"Well, looks like this drawer balances out," Jake announced. "Randy?"

"All good here, man," Randal said. "Let's bag it up and go deposit it." He handed the cash from his drawer

"What's our take for today?" Dustin asked.

"$449 cash, $379 card. Total: $828 for the day. Not bad for a Monday." Jake leaned against the counter and let out an exhausted breath. "Cameron, how are those orders coming?"

"All done," Cameron announced.

"Good to hear," Jake nodded as he placed the money in an envelope and wrote down some information on it before stuffing it into his pockets.

"Saddle up, guys; we ride for home!" Jake ran over and unlocked the door just in time for Dustin and Cameron to burst through and run out into the lot, Dustin screaming "Freedom" at the top of his lungs.

Taylor shook her head and walked over to where Jake had parked his Camaro earlier that day. Next to it was a white Ford Explorer, which Cameron hopped into the driver's seat of while Dewey got into the front passenger side. Taylor looked back at Randal, who was chatting excitedly with Carson.

"Well when we get our internet hooked up, we'll definitely add you to our XBOX friends list," Carson said as Taylor walked over.

"Hey, if you want, Cameron can give you a ride back to your house. Carson mentioned you live on Elm Street, so you're just up the road from where I live. I mean, if you want to, you can…"

"Yeah, that would be nice," Taylor replied quickly.

"Cool," Randal smiled as he and Taylor made eye-contact for what seemed like an eternity. Cameron looked back at the pair in the rearview mirror and honked the Explorer's horn to distract them.

"Oh, shove that horn up your ass!" Randy shouted as he marched to the rear passenger door. Taylor turned to follow him, but was stopped momentarily by Jake.

"You left these on the counter," he held up the two sacks with Taylor's comics in them.

"Oh, shit, thank you," she laughed.

"Don't mention it. Now, I have reviewed your application, and have decided that you are a viable candidate for employment at Dream Master Comics and Collectibles. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow, 9:30 A.M."

"Yes, sir," Taylor said with a mock salute, which Jake returned before adding, "Carson wants to ride with me in the Camaro, so I'm gonna follow you back to your house and drop him off. That cool?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Taylor said, grinning ear to ear. Jake smiled wide, and motioned towards the Explorer.

"I think they're waiting on you," he joked.

Taylor sat next to Randal in the back of the Explorer as Cameron drove it up Elm Street. Jake was following close behind with Carson as they pulled into the 1400 block.

"Right there, on the right side," Taylor said as Cameron brought the vehicle to a stop.

"No way, that's your house?" Randal asked, his voice dripping with surprise.

"Yeah, we just moved in yesterday."

"My house is right across the street," Randal pointed to the house directly opposite of Taylor's.

"Oh wow, that's awesome!"

"Yeah, awesome," Dustin parroted from the front, eyeing Taylor's house with heavy suspicion.

Taylor and Randal got out of the Explorer just as Jake pulled up behind them. Carson popped out of the Camaro and walked up to the porch while Taylor stayed behind with Randal.

"So, I guess we're gonna be working together at the shop."

"That we are, that we are," Randy chuckled. He seemed to be at a loss for what to say next, Taylor could tell. Actually, he seemed to not have any idea what to say every time he tried to talk to her.

It was kinda cute, actually.

"So I guess I'll see you tomorrow," Taylor suggested. Randal nodded and said, "Yeah, I hope so. I mean, yes, you will."

He turned his eyes towards the house, and his demeanor changed almost immediately; Taylor could see a visible shudder run down his body. But he shook his head and turned back to the Explorer.

"Hey, I got to get going, I'm late enough as it is," Randal said as he came around to the other side of the Explorer. "See you guys later, everyone!"

Dustin stuck his head out the window and waved until the van turned the corner. Taylor waited until Randal had gone inside before turning back to her house. The windows were all dark, but the house was illuminated by what seemed to be the only street lamp on the entire street. It gave the place an eerie, ethereal glow. And it made the bottom of Taylor's stomach drop away.

That, and there was something peculiar about Jake and the rest of her new friends...

Cameron stopped the SUV just around the corner, and let the engine idle.

"No way does she live in that house," Dustin said. "I know she said she just moved in, but I should have made the connection sooner!" Dustin banged the dashboard hard as Jake rolled his Camaro around to the driver's side. For a full minute, the trio sat in silence until a pair of running footsteps alerted them to Randal's presence. He ducked in between the two vehicles and shook his head.

"This is bad," Randal spoke first. "She can't live there; she's going to get killed!"

"What are we going to do, Randy?" Cameron asked. "We can't just toss all their crap on the lawn and hope they leave!"

"But… _He's_ going to kill her! Kill all of them!" Randal was nearly screaming, and Dustin shushed him. "We have to tell them," Randal resumed. "Tell them about the house, and about Fre-"

"We tell them nothing," Jake said for the first time, all the jovialness he had expressed in everything he said so far that day suddenly gone.

"Jake, we've got to do something," Dustin said. "If they don't know-"

"That's just it: they don't know," Jake replied sternly. He sat silent for a moment before continuing. "If Taylor and her family doesn't know, then they can't be afraid. It's our fear that gives him his power, remember?"

He glanced around at everybody, who just looked down their chests and didn't respond. Cameron and Dustin nodded in agreement. Randal acted like he wanted to be defiant, but after a moment, he caved and agreed.

"Okay," Randal conceded. "This is your rodeo; you've dealt with… You've dealt with him more than us, so it's your call."

"Good," Jake said. "Now nobody breathes another word of this to anybody, not even each other, understood?" All three of them nodded in agreement. "Thanks to us, thanks to what we do, there hasn't been a death in eighteen months," Jake added. "I'll be goddamned if I let it start up again just because one of us gets the heebie-jeebies."

"Yeah, I got it," Randal spat. "But you understand this, Jake: if something happens to her because we sat with our thumbs up our asses and did nothing, your dream powers won't be enough to stop me from killing you myself!"

"Duly noted," Jake said. "Now get out of here and try to go to sleep." Jake pointed his thumb behind him and Randal sank back towards his house. Jake turned back and buried his face in his hands for a moment before turning to Cameron and Dustin. "Go on, guys, go home. We'll deal with this shit later." He waved them on before digging out his cell phone and scrolled down to the name "Alice Johnson," which had a tag underneath it reading "mom."

Jake put the ringing phone to his ear and waited for his mom to pick up. When she did, the first thing he heard was running water, followed by his mother's soft voice.

"Hey, Jacob, honey," she said sweetly. "How did we do at the shop today?"

"We did fine, mom," Jake quickly replied. "Listen, we've got a problem."

"What is it, sweetie?" Alice asked from the other end. "Oh, did the modem crash again? I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another…"

"Mom, it's about him!" Jake screamed into the phone. "It's about Freddy Krueger!" Alice fell silent for a moment, and the next thing Jacob heard was the phone sliding from her hands and crashing to the floor just before the line went dead.

Proceed to Interlude I


	7. Interlude I

And here we are again, loyal readers. This, the first in a series of flashback interludes spread throughout the novel, will detail the backstory of Cameron, the artist of our story's little group. And Chapter 6 will be posted on March 13th, so don't fall asleep...

* * *

_Interlude I_

_The Artist_

_It was hot in the boiler room. Though there weren't any flames, at least as far as I could see, you could see the air rippling from the intensity of the heat. That's why Amy was always so terrified of the place._

_I never dreamed of the boiler room myself, not until after what happened to Amy. But before too long, I did. And it was an experience I will never forget._

_I was sitting at my desk, drawing in my art book. It was two weeks after the incident at Amy's. That night, the police had questioned me about… him. They asked me all these questions about my dreams, and I almost didn't tell them until the officer described the man from our dreams. I tried to hide it, but my body language betrayed me. But the officer didn't take me away. Instead, he nodded and told me, ''We'll take care of this.''_

_For some reason, I believed him. But how would they do it? I kept wondering. What trick is up their sleeves?_

_Which brings me to the night two weeks later. When I'm sitting at my desk, I enter a state of absent-mindedness. I tune out anything and everything; my music, my television, my mother, all of it, when I'm drawing. Which is why my mother had to come into my room and tap my shoulder to tell me dinner was ready._

_''Okay, mom,'' I said. She placed her arms around me, knowing just how upset I had been over Amy, and kissed me on my forehead._

_She's a sweet woman, my mom. She used to be a heavy drinker, but had been sober for over a year now. When she drank, she wasn't mean, but she drank often and it got in the way of her being a mother. I would stay at a friend's house for days on end because she never did anything except drink, and pass out on her bed smelling like she went swimming in alcohol instead of ingesting it. She finally grew tired of it and got herself some help. I'll always be proud of her for doing it on her own, but I always fear she might relapse. I guess most people living with addicts do._

_''I love you, sweetie,'' she said. Then, she looked at my drawing. She picked it up off the table, and looked at it._

_''Ooh, he's scary,'' she said playfully. I took the drawing from her, and surprised myself: I had just drawn the person from our dreams. He had on his red and green sweater, his clawed arm draped over his chest with his hand resting on his shoulder. The burns on his skin were so well done, the entire drawing so realistic, I almost thought it was a photograph at first._

_''I'll be down in a minute, mom,'' I told her hastily. She left the room, and I stared at the drawing in my hands. It was then that I noticed my desk was covered in similar drawings._

_There was one of a young girl with curly brown hair in a white nightgown, lying in bed with the covers pulled up to her chest, and the wall above her was bulging with the head and hands of the monster. Another showed a pair of young lovers embracing each other in a bathroom. The man stared at his reflection in the mirror, but it wasn't his; it was the monster, his skeletal face staring back, with a bony hand draped over the shoulder of the oblivious girl._

_There were more drawings: a nun in front of an asylum; a young woman with a baby in her arms, a baby who looked suspiciously familiar; a bed with a fountain of blood spewing from a hole in the center._

_I was scared, because I don't remember doing any of these drawings._

_There was a screech coming from outside my door, and I knew he was out there. I stepped back from my desk and waited. For what, I'm not sure. I listened for… anything. But there was not another sound, save for that of the jackhammer beating in my chest. I felt myself getting a bit warm under the collar, but I initially brushed it off._

_I approached the door and reached for the knob, but yanked my hand back in pain; the handle was red hot, and I knew I had somehow fallen asleep. I don't know how I knew, I just did. But I couldn't make myself wake up, no matter how hard I tried._

_I pulled off my shirt and wrapped it around my hand to open the door. I could feel the heat in the air, hindering my breaths. Amy had talked about the first nightmare she had, a year before she met me, where he led her to the boiler room. He had cornered her down there, and sent her through like a rat in a maze._

_I would not be a rat._

_I walked down the hallway towards the living room, expecting to see my mother sitting in her chair, but she wasn't. In fact, there was no furniture at all, just the TV on the entertainment center running one of those old ''this is your brain on drugs'' commercials, though for some reason the guy looked like Johnny Depp._

_I walked through the living room into the kitchen, where a pot of what looked like blood was boiling over the metal edges, despite the burner not being on. Each drop sizzled as it hit the stovetop, and the burning smell fouled my nostrils._

_I hurried towards the backdoor that led down into the garage, but the garage wasn't there when I opened the door. Instead, the stairs that were supposed to lead to the garage led down into darkness, a faint red glow the only indication of the room at the bottom of the steps._

_I took the steps downwards, but each step I took seemed to add two more to the staircase. It seemed like it took me an eternity to finally reach the bottom. The room before me was expansive, going on and on for what seemed like hundreds of yards in every direction. Boilers and stove furnaces lined up next to catwalks and pipes lined the ceiling. Steam hissed from the pipes, giving a dense atmosphere to the room._

_The screeching came again, but the sound seemed to come from everywhere._

_''Where are you, you sick fucker!'' I shouted angrily. ''I'm going to kill you myself!''_

_His mocking laugh echoed throughout the room, taunting me. My conventional wisdom told me to turn back, but my anger at him for what he did to Amy wouldn't let me. Not until his glove was ripped from his bloody hand._

_I walked down the catwalk like a man with a purpose, unafraid of the shadows that lingered on every surface. He could have jumped out from any inch of darkness in the room and ended me so fast, my head would have spun. But he didn't, and I wanted to know why._

_Did he want me to see something? Did he know I wasn't afraid? He lives off of our fear; if we're not afraid, he has no power over us. He can't hurt us if we're not afraid._

_There was a sound behind me, the chittering sound of metal blades being rubbed together. I turned on the spot, and he stood about fifteen feet away from me. The metal blades of his glove sparked as he clicked them together menacingly. The pitting on his face seemed to be leaking what I believed to be blood, dripping to the floor in loud plops. His teeth were sharp and rotting, and his tongue drew across the edges, cutting deep and causing more blood to drip from his mouth._

_Freddy Krueger._

_He might have scared Amy, but he didn't scare me. I knew he wasn't real. He couldn't hurt me._

_''Artists are tortured souls,'' he said. ''Van Gogh cut off his own ear as a gift to a woman…'' Krueger placed the blades on a pipe and dragged them along as he walked towards me, the scraping sound a torture on my ears. ''…your ear would make a fine gift for darling Amy!''_

_''Fuck you!'' I screamed at him! But he had vanished, gone in a cloud of the steam that filled the room. I didn't dare breathe, deluding myself into believing I would hear him if he tried to sneak on me._

_A scream pierced through the air, and for the first time that night, I was filled with fear._

_The scream belonged to Amy!_

_My cool gone in a flash, I began dashing down the hallway, calling out Amy's name! I could hear her crying out for me, but wasn't sure if she could hear me! My heart pounded in my chest, and soon I rounded a corner into a large, open space. All of a sudden, all the air was gone from my chest, and I stood there gasping in disbelief._

_Amy stood, not ten feet away from me, her arms limp by her side, four long and deep open cuts coming diagonally down her face with blood dripping down her chin and onto her chest, and the rest of her completely naked body. Her mouth hung open, and her face was pale, her once emerald eyes now gray and lifeless. There were several locks of her hair down by her feet that had been slashed from her head where the wounds on her face were._

_There was something else not right about it. It was like she was moving inside of her own skin; it deeply unsettled me to see her like this._

_''Amy,'' I whispered. There had been a hole in my life since the night Amy died. And seeing her there, like she was in this state, it only made the hole bigger. I knew it was all a ruse by Freddy, but I didn't care. Amy was standing right there. Tears rushed to my eyes, and I began crying on the spot._

_''Amy…'' I softly cried out again, reaching my hand out to her. She reached out for me, her hand stiff as it raised up for mine. But I couldn't bring myself to touch her; no matter how much I tried, I couldn't touch her._

_A gleaming silver blade pierced through her torso just below her waistline and began drawing itself up towards her head. The blade split her open, and her intestines fell to the ground in a bloody, steaming mass._

_''Cameron…'' she whispered to me as the blade came up between her breasts. Her heart and lungs dropped from her chest cavity and hung there while the blade continued upwards to slice through her beautiful face. It came to a stop in the middle of her forehead above the eyebrows before retreating back inside her head._

_Her hands moved stiffly upwards to her face. The fingers curled in and wormed their way into the large gash, pulling it apart like a snake shedding its skin. Beneath Amy's skin, Freddy's hideous visage came to life with a sinister smile. Amy's dead body fell away in two pieces on the hot floor, sizzling like meat on the grill and leaving the monstrous shape of Freddy Krueger standing in her place._

_I was frozen in place, fear finally taking control fully. Tears streamed down my face as the two halves of Amy's face still moved in conjunction with one another and, as Freddy moved towards me with that terrifying glove of his raised and ready to strike, kept repeating over and over one word: my name._

_''Cameron… Cameron… CAMERON!''_

_I jumped awake at my desk and flung myself away the moment I felt the arm on my shoulder. I screamed and whirled a backhand at the figure standing above me, connecting in what I believed was the face!_

_''Get off me, motherfucker!'' I shouted, fully expecting to see Freddy prepared to skewer me with his blades!_

_But it was only my mother, her hand raised to her face in shock and covering the spot where I had just struck her, which was already burning a deep red. She stared at me, as if I had suddenly become the monster that was coming after me and my friends._

_My face dropped like a sack of potatoes, and I suddenly myself weighed down by incredible guilt._

_''Dinner's ready, sweetheart,'' she said, her voice soft as always, but her words clipped sharply in anger. She was already gone and down the hallway before my mind told me to move._

_I raced down after her, calling out after her, ''Mom, wait!'' I finally caught up to her in the kitchen, preparing to go out the door into the garage, her coat already on._

_''Mom, wait,'' I said again as I came into the kitchen. ''Please, don't.'' I was on the verge of tears again because I knew what she was about to do: relapse._

_''Mom…'' I stammered. ''I… I'm sorry.'' I was fully crying now. ''I just… another nightmare, and I thought you were… trying to hurt me…'' I had trouble finishing my sentences through the sobs. I approached her and placed my hand on hers, which was on the doorknob about to open it. She removed her hand and turned to face me. I threw my arms around her, placed my head on her shoulder and wept uncontrollably. My breaths were sharp and I could feel my face turning red and puffy. Every emotion I had pent up over the last two weeks suddenly came out in a wash of tears onto my mom's shirt._

_I gave a quick jerk when I felt a hand on my neck, but relaxed as my mom stroked and massaged the bottom of my hairline, which she always did when we hugged. She'd forgiven me, which was good, because I really didn't want her to start drinking again._

_I love my mom, and nothing is going to change that._

_The phone rang and I lifted my head up to look at the receiver on the wall. I started to grab for it, but my mom stopped me._

_''Go eat,'' she motioned to a pair of plates on the table consisting of grilled chicken and rice. My eyes still wet with tears, I nodded and sat down as she answered the phone._

_''Hello? May I ask who is calling?''_

_I cut into the chicken on the plate and had just put it to my mouth when my mom called my name._

_''Cameron,'' she said. I turned around, and her face was deathly pale, like she had just seen a ghost._

_Or Freddy._

_She handed the phone to me, speechless at something. I took the receiver from her hands and held it to my ear._

_''Hello?'' I spoke into the phone. The response was a girl's voice, and it was the last voice I had expected to hear ever in my life. Especially on that night._

_''Cameron? Is that really you?''_

_I nearly dropped the receiver, my hands were so numb and trembling. It wasn't possible. Was it?_

_''Amy?''_

To be continued...

3/13/15


	8. Morning

_And now, we're back again! Apologies for the story moving so slowly, but we're about to pick up the pace in a couple more chapters, I swear! Hahahaha! Character building is an important part of storytelling, after all. Anyway, the next couple of chapters are when Taylor starts to realize there is a mystery to Springwood that's starting to open up in front of her, so expect a little backstory soon. Until then, enjoy this new chapter and don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 6

MORNING

August 25th, 2014

One of Taylor's favorite shows was Power Rangers. She had watched it since she was a little girl, and her fondest memory was playing the video game for the movie on her Sega Genesis.

She absolutely loved the 8-bit synthesizer soundtrack for the game, which was why she had set the 8-bit version of the main theme as her main ringtone on her phone.

But as much as she loved hearing it, it was the most annoying thing in the world to hear at 6:15 in the morning of her first day at a new school.

She was perfectly content to just let it go, but when it began playing through for the fourth time, she was finally sick and tired of hearing it!

"God, shut the hell up!" She screamed as she grabbed the phone. "Who the hell is calling anyway?"

She silenced herself when she saw it was Randal on the caller I.D. Her heart skipped a beat and a wide smile crossed her face. She answered the phone and did as best as she could to hide the fact that she had been asleep only ten seconds ago.

"Hello?"

"Hey, T? I didn't wake you, did I?" Randal asked.

"No," Taylor said. "You actually sound like you kind of woke yourself up, dude."

"No, that's because I haven't been to bed yet."

"Why not?" Taylor asked.

"It's kind of a long story," Randal said, though he failed to elaborate.

Taylor had worked at the comic shop with Randal every day for the past three weeks, and not a single moment of it had been dull. That first week, he had tried so hard to maintain some level of cool, but his awkwardness always won out and he wound up doing something incredibly stupid right in front of her, leaving him hilariously embarrassed. The incident that stuck out the most was when he was carrying a box of new release issues to the floor, but tripped over his own shadow and landed face first into the graphic novel rack, giving himself a bloody nose in the process.

Watching him, Taylor couldn't help but feel for him. Her new friends had been a whole lot nicer to her than she ever would have suspected, but Randal was the real standout. And it had taken him so long to ask for her number that Taylor was unsure if he ever would.

And yet, here he was, talking to her at 6:30 in the morning as if it was 6:30 in the evening.

"So, Cameron and Dustin are coming to pick me up for school around 7:30, then go get some breakfast, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come with us."

Taylor mulled it over for a moment before giving her answer. "Yeah, that would be fine," she said. "I'll be ready by then."

"Cool," Randal said, partially to himself. "I'll see you in an hour. Bye."

"Bye," Taylor said, her voice cracked with delight as she hung up. There was a creaking noise coming from her door, and Carson poked his head inside.

"_Taylor and Randal, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-_JESUS!" Carson ducked back into the hallway as Taylor threw a massive book at his head, missing and causing the door to slam shut. Carson re-opened the door and stuck his middle finger through the crack before leaving for good. Taylor laughed so hard she nearly fell off the bed.

It was just before 7:15 when Taylor and Carson walked out the door of their house. The sun was well out this morning, yet an odd chill hung in the air. Taylor shivered slightly in her t-shirt as they made their way down to the sidewalk in front of the house.

"So you really like Randy, don't you?" Carson asked his cousin as they made their way down the walkway to the street. Taylor shot him a dirty look, but a faint smile deceived her true emotions.

"You do," Carson laughed. "You've known him all of two weeks, and you've already fallen in love with him."

"Three weeks," Taylor corrected, accidentally confirming it. They were crossing the street now, and Taylor could hear the bus coming down the street. Carson stepped up onto the sidewalk and waited near the bus sign.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with?" Taylor asked. "Could be fun."

"Nah," Carson said. "I'll take the bus. Middle school starts earlier, remember? I have to be there at eight, not eight-thirty."

"Okay," Taylor agreed, a dash of nervousness in her voice as she looked up at Randal's house.

"But I will go up and knock on the door for you," Carson offered.

"Buzz off, dweeb, I got this!" Taylor said as she walked up to the door. She lifted her hand up to knock, but suddenly froze. What if someone else answered the door, and they shooed her off? What if-

There was a knock at the door. Startled, Taylor looked down and saw Carson banging his fist on the wood.

"You froze," he said matter-of-factly. Taylor gave Carson a playful shove; he flew off the side of the porch and landed in a bush just as the door to the house opened. Taylor regained her composure as a woman about ten years older than her aunt opened the door. The woman looked so much like Randal that, for a moment, Taylor could have sworn it was Randal in drag if Randal himself hadn't been standing at the foot of the stairs behind her.

"Hi," Taylor said meekly. "Is Randal here?" She instantly kicked herself; of course he was here! He was standing less than ten feet away from her!

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Randal came up behind the woman and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and Randal made hand motions while speaking: "I got this, mother. Go back to your oatmeal." The woman made hand motions back, and tried to speak, but Randal held up a hand to shush her. "She's a friend," he said with the hand motions. "This is Taylor. I work with her; I told you about her." The woman nodded and looked back at Taylor with a sour look. She shook her head and went back into the kitchen.

"I am so sorry about that," Randal said after his mom had gone. "She's deaf, and she doesn't really like people all that much."

"I'm sorry," Taylor said. "Can I ask how she…?" Taylor held a finger to her ear, and Randal laughed.

"I'd tell you, but I don't even know for sure. It happened before I was born. Anyway, Dustin and them will be here soon, so why don't you and Carson both come in?"

Taylor suddenly remembered that Carson was in the bush behind her. She turned and saw Carson leaning against the porch with his arms crossed. Down the street, the bus drew closer to the house.

"I'm good," Carson said. "The bus is nearly here."

"Alright, take it easy," Randal said as Carson made his way back to the stop. Randal ushered Taylor inside, but remained as the bus came to a stop and Carson got on.

The bus driver opened the doors and Carson hustled up the steps to get inside. The driver, a dark-haired woman who couldn't have been about six years older than Taylor, grabbed a sheet of paper from the drop-down mirror and made a note on a map.

"Which one is yours?" the woman asked. Carson motioned to his house across the street. The woman looked out the window, and gave a brief pause. If Carson hadn't been looking at her, he would have missed it. But the woman quickly shook it off and looked back at Carson as she flipped the page on the notepad. "Name?"

"Carson King," he said. She scribbled his name onto a sheet of paper, and looked up at him. "Just moved in?" the driver asked. Carson nodded. "I figured. Your house has been empty for nearly ten years."

"It's a nice place," Carson smiled.

"I don't doubt it," she said softly. "Anyway, I'm Kateri. I drive this bus every day, morning and afternoon. So when you get out of school, you'll find this bus, okay?" Kateri gave Carson a big smile and motioned to the seats behind her when he nodded. "Go pick a seat; I need to get rolling again."

The bus was mostly empty, save for a trio of girls near the front, and a lone kid sitting in the solo seat at the back. Carson looked down at the trio, who were all sitting squeezed together in the same seat. The one closest to the aisle looked up at him, and gave him a quick smile before turning back to her friends.

Carson picked a seat near the middle as the bus began to move. He pulled a book out of his bag and began reading it, but was soon aware of someone in the seat on front of him. The bus hadn't stopped to pick anyone else up yet, so he glanced up; the girl he had seen earlier was staring at him from over the seatback. She was Asian, and had long dark hair that came to her shoulders. She had narrow-framed glasses on her head, and braces on her teeth gave her a slight lisp when she spoke.

"Hi," she smiled at him.

"Hi," he mimicked. The girl stared at him in silence, and it nearly freaked him out. He started to go back to his book, but the girl had other things in mind.

"Whatcha reading?" She didn't wait for an answer and grabbed the book from his hands "The Bourne Identity. I loved that movie," she said as she placed it in the seat beside her and continued on before Carson could protest. "I have the hots for Matt Damon. So that was your house back there? It's a nice house, kinda old. Well, gotta go. Bye!" The girl stood and went back to her seat with her friends, leaving Carson's book on the seat where she had been.

Carson grabbed the book back and was about to open it when he noticed a piece of paper sticking out from the page he had been reading. It was no longer than his finger, and had two things scribbled on it: her name, Kari; and her phone number.

Randal closed the door as the bus drove off and followed Taylor inside. Though the outside was different from her own house, Taylor noted that the inside was remarkably similar, though seemed to be mirrored.

"I love your house," Taylor said as she looked around the entrance hall.

"It's not much, but its home," Randal admitted. "Come on, my room is upstairs." Randal hustled up the stairs and Taylor followed close behind. Randal tuned a corner at the landing and opened a door to the immediate right of the stairs, leading into a massive room that sprawled from the front to the back of the house.

The walls were plastered with so many posters of metal bands and video games, some people would have considered the room a fire hazard. A desk in front of the street-facing window was stacked with stationary, school books piled up against an adjacent dresser. Another desk in the corner had what appeared to be a large gaming computer set up, with multiple monitors and two Alienware towers, though one was opened up with the guts spilling out.

On the far wall near the back of the room was a stack of amplifiers, and a storage rack with a cherry-red Gibson SG.

"You play?" Taylor asked. Randal nodded as he grabbed the guitar off the rack and placed the strap around his shoulders. He started to play a quick riff, playing the notes fast and loud. When he was finished, he looked up at Taylor, who was grinning wildly.

"That was awesome," she said as she reached out for the guitar. "May I?" Randal handed her the guitar, and Taylor threw the strap around her shoulder. She positioned her fingers on the fret board and started strumming out a riff that was vaguely familiar to Randal, though he didn't place it until Taylor started singing.

"_He looks… At me… I fake a smile so he won't see…_

_That I want… and I needing… everything that we should be…_

_I'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about,_

_And she's got everything that I have to live without._

_He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,_

_The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart._

_He's the song I keep singing in my car, don't know why I do…_"

Her playing was slightly off, but her singing was pitch perfect, Randal noticed. As Taylor finished, she looked at Randal and smiled.

"I know that was kinda crappy," she said meekly, handing the guitar back to him.

"No, your singing was excellent, I loved it."

"I'm a huge Taylor Swift fan," Taylor said with a smile. "Some people even said I kinda look like her."

"I bet they gave you hell for that. You look like her, sing and play her music, even have the same first name."

Taylor laughed and hid her face in her hands. "Please don't start calling me 'Taylor Swift.' That's just embarrassing."

"I won't, I promise," Randal said. He stood up and put the guitar back on its stand. "Can't say the same for Dustin and the others, however."

A vibrating noise caught Taylor unaware; she turned to see a phone dancing across the desk behind her, playing the "Star Trek TNG" theme.

"That' will be Cameron calling me," Randal said as he grabbed the phone off the table top and answered it.

"Yeah, we're upstairs. Be down in a second." Randal hung up and motioned towards the door. "Breakfast time," he said. He grabbed a backpack from behind the door and slung it over his shoulder. "Cameron's downstairs," he said as he nodded towards the door. "You like pancakes?"

Proceed to next chapter...


	9. The Breakfast Club

CHAPTER 7

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Cameron whipped the SUV into the parking lot next to the diner and pulled into the spot closest to the street. He hadn't even shut off the engine before Randal and Dustin jumped out of the car.

"Race you inside, fucker!" Dustin jeered at Randal before taking off like a rocket around the corner and into the diner. Randal raced off behind him, disappearing into the building, leaving Cameron alone with Taylor.

"Christ, those guys can be so immature," Cameron remarked. Taylor wasn't paying much attention; instead, she was focused on the building itself.

The Springwood Diner was situated on the corner of the street, four blocks from the school and just up the road from the comic shop. The place was done up in a style reminiscent of diners from the fifties, with the black-and-white checkerboard tile patterns, among other little details. But something about the building seemed familiar...

"Like it? It's brand new," Cameron said. "Well, not brand-spanking new; it's about ten years old. The old one burnt down back in the nineties."

"I can't shake the feeling that I've been here before," Taylor looked at Cameron, hoping for an explanation.

"Glitch in the Matrix," was the only thing he offered up as he walked around to the entrance, Taylor following him closely.

Inside the diner, it was like stepping back through time. The walls were the same checkerboard pattern as outside, but were decorated with fifties-era memorabilia, such as photographs of autos, movie stars, and several booths were mockups of era cars. Neon signs hung from several spots, and all the seats were red leather. It was a true fifties-style place.

Taylor spotted Randal and Dustin at the far end of the diner in a round corner booth. Jake was there as well, with a girl sitting in the booth with them and facing away from Taylor and Cameron, so all Taylor could see was the girl's auburn hair.

"Who's that?" Taylor asked as they started walking towards them. Cameron shrugged, but couldn't shake a fishy feeling that was brought on by the wide grins on Randal and Dustin's faces.

"Taylor," Jake spoke. "I'd like you to meet a very old friend of ours."

The girl turned to face Taylor with a smile, which quickly dropped when she saw Cameron. Cameron's face went blank for a moment, almost like he had seen a ghost.

It had been a very long time since he had seen those emerald-green eyes.

"Amy?" Cameron's eyes widened, almost as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Immediately, the girl jumped out of the booth, threw her arms around Cameron, and began kissing him wildly, causing Taylor to jump back in surprise. The girl, and Cameron, much to Taylor's amusement, started squealing in delight. She cast a cursory glance at Jake, who merely smiled and took the opportunity to remove himself from the booth.

"Oh my God, when did you get back?" Cameron gushed as he continued kissing the girl.

"Yesterday," she said in a stage whisper. "God, I missed you!"

"I missed you too, baby." Cameron smiled widely and turned to Taylor. "Taylor, this is Amelia, my girlfriend," he said.

"Hi," Taylor said, extending her hand. Amelia looked skittish at first, but a gentle nudge from Cameron helped her to return the gesture.

"Nice to meet you, Taylor," Amy said softly. The long lock of hair on her face blew apart ever so briefly, and Taylor caught a quick glimpse of her left eye; it was milky white in color with a faint blue tint on her iris, and Taylor knew instantly that Amy was blind in the eye.

"Jesus, what happened to your eye?" Taylor asked before realizing that she was potentially being rude. At once, Amy's face dropped in what Taylor would later describe as fear. But before she could apologize, however, Cameron offered up an explanation.

"It happened when she was fifteen," he said as he ushered Amy into the booth. "She had a dog, a Rottweiler that got excitable real easily. Jumped up and got her."

"Left me blind in my left eye," Amy lifted up her hair and showed it off to Taylor. There were also four faint scars going down at an angle across the eye.

"Oh my God," Taylor gasped. "I'm glad it wasn't worse."

"You and me both," Amy said as she squeezed into the booth. Cameron got in next to her, but Taylor decided to sit with Randal on the other side.

"Scoot your tush," Taylor gave Randy a playful shove deeper into the booth and sat down. Then, she looked up at Jake,

"Are you not gonna eat with us?" she asked.

"Not today," Jake shook his head. "I've got things to do before I head to the shop."

Taylor was somewhat taken aback by how vague he was being. He'd been this way for a few days now, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Why was he being so mysterious all of a sudden?

She didn't have much time to wonder because the waitress soon came up. She was quite a bit older than the others, but still looked incredibly young for a woman her age. Her hair was deep auburn, save for a single lock above her forehead, which was silver in color, and made Taylor think of "Rogue" from _X-Men_. In her hands, which were folded across her chest, was a pen and paper for taking orders.

"Dustin Wallace, is that you?" The waitress had an excited look on her face as she glanced around the table. "And you brought the whole crew! Christ, boy, where've you been? Haven't seen you in a while!"

"I've been getting ready for school last few weeks, Heather." Dustin said. A smile crawled across his face, which nearly caused Randal and Cameron to burst into fits of laughter, though Taylor was perplexed as to why. She also took the moment to realize that Jake had vanished.

"It's senior year for all of you, isn't it?" Heather looked down and noticed Taylor for the first time. "You, too?"

Taylor nodded eagerly, and Heather continued. "You'll love it here, sweetie. I graduated from here myself."

"Really?" Taylor asked.

"Class of '84. Are we all getting the usuals today?" Heather pulled out her pen and paper and looked around the table.

"We're kinda on a time crunch this morning, actually," Dustin said to the waitress. "So a stack of flaps, some pig meat, and barn rocks for everyone."

"Can do," she said. "Bacon, sausage, or ham?"

"Bacon!" Randal, Dustin, and Cameron shouted simultaneously.

"I'll have ham," Amy said. Heather looked at Taylor, who softly said, "Sausage."

"Eggs?" Again, Dustin, Randal, and Cameron were nearly simultaneous with their answer of "scrambled." Taylor requested "scrambled," as well, though Amy was the oddball with "sunny side up."

"Alrighty, we'll have these out ten minutes." Heather said as she ran off for the kitchen.

"She's nice," Taylor said. "I guess you know her?"

"A little bit," Dustin said. Both Randal and Cameron sniggered loudly.

"He used to work for her," Cameron said.

"He used to fuck her, too," Randal laughed.

"I think he still does," Cameron added with a chuckle.

"Lay off, guys," Dustin whispered. "Don't everyone need to know my business…"

"Heather got your business, _know what I mean…?_" Cameron nearly gave himself an asthma attack from laughing so hard. Dustin turned to Taylor.

"Don't listen to these chuckleheads; story is, I used to work here a few summers back. I was here for a couple years, saving up the money to get my first car. Heather was my trainer, and later my supervisor."

"And later, your lover," Randal added, a comment which rewarded him with a jab in the ribs by Dustin's elbow.

"Yes, we did have sex," Dustin admitted. "Once. Which is one more time having sex than this bozo's ever had!"

Now it was Randal's turn to get defensive. "I have too had sex!"

"Yeah, with Molly Palmer and her five sisters, perhaps," Cameron shot.

"No, he's had sex with Pamela Hand-erson, too," Dustin added.

"Scarlett Jo-hand-son," that one from Amy.

"Lindsay Lotion?" Taylor suggested. Randal's face went beet red, and he buried his head into his arms on the table, barely able to contain his laughter. Dustin was howling himself.

"I think that one may be our winner," Cameron suggested. At that moment, Heather came by with a tray full of coffee mugs.

"Anybody for coffee?" Everyone nodded, so Heather sat the tray down on the table. Everyone grabbed a mug, though Randal and Dustin both reached for the blue one. A quick game of rock-paper-scissors later, Dustin was sulking with the ugly brown one while Randal waited for Heather to return with the pot with a wide smirk.

"So are you really a virgin?" Taylor asked Randal.

"No, I'm not. In fact, I lost it before any of these jerkwads did." Cameron and Amy flashed each other a look, but said nothing.

"Allegedly," Dustin said. "It was during the game homecoming last year. He claims he snuck off with Sara Bell to the band room during the second quarter. Well, a few months later, we all learn that she's pregnant. Well the timeline fits, and that would normally be the smoking gun in his favor. But she's claiming the baby isn't his, so we have no solid proof one way or the other."

"So either he dodged a bullet, or one of them's lying," Cameron added.

"I don't know anything, except that I had sex with Sara Bell on homecoming night," Randal laughed confidently.

"What about you, Taylor? Still the proud owner of the v-card?" Dustin asked. There was a dull thud from under the table, and Dustin's face dropped like a stone. Randal smiled smugly and pulled his balled up fist out from under the table.

"Fucker…" Dustin whispered breathlessly in a slightly higher tone of voice.

"That's not a very nice thing to ask a lady," Randal as he cracked his knuckles. Before Dustin had the opportunity to ask anything else, Heather came back with a small tray of different flavored syrups.

"Food will be out in just a moment, guys. What happened to you?" Heather asked as she looked at Dustin, clearly in testicular agony. "Does he need an icepack?"

"He'll be fine," Randal insisted. "Unless you have one for his pride…"

"Alrighty, see you kids in just a sec with your food."

Thirty minutes later, the food had been brought out and nearly completely demolished by all except Amy, who was taking her time with it.

"So how long have you two been together?" Taylor asked Cameron.

"We started dating when we were about fifteen, so three years now, a little over."

"I'm jealous. I've never been able to keep a guy longer than four months," Taylor added as she took a sip of her drink.

"Randal's record is twenty minutes," Dustin laughed.

"And where's your girlfriend, jackwipe?" Randal mocked.

"She's currently in the kitchens, brewing another pot of coffee." The whole table was disturbed by a watery snort, which turned out to have come from Taylor, who had been in the middle of taking a drink when Dustin said that and had wound up blowing her soda out her nose. The drink blew out of her nostrils and onto the table like liquid buckshot, spraying her's and Randal's plates with Dr. Pepper.

"Oh fuck!" she shouted as she pulled a napkin to her nose, a shout that was half-embarrassment, half-pain. "That shit burns!"

"Good thing it wasn't coffee," Cameron joked.

"It's not funny!" Taylor shouted, but her uncontrollable giggling betrayed her attempt to be serious.

Suddenly, there was a clinking of metal right next to Taylor's ear. Still smiling, she turned to look at it. There were four knives on each of the fingers on the hand of the man standing over her! He wore an apron that appeared to be a shade of Christmas-green underneath, but was covered with dark red blotches of what looked like blood! The man himself was older, bald and with a short beard of gray. He smiled wide, almost grinning, and said…

"Can I take your plate, sweetheart?"

Taylor looked back at the hand, which was in fact only _holding_ the knives, not attached to them in any way. She glanced back at the apron, and discovered that the blotches were clearly just dried ketchup.

"Yeah, please," she said, feeling a great sense of relief.

"Anyone else?" the man asked, and everyone except Amy, who still had food on her plate, nodded. The man grabbed the plates and then looked down at Amy.

"Need a box, sweetheart?" he asked kindly.

"Yes, please," Amy nodded.

"I'll have Heather bring you out one," he added with a smile as he left with his cart.

...

"Thank you for breakfast," Taylor said as her and Randal walked down the hallway of Springwood High. Dustin was walking briskly behind them, but wasn't paying the least bit attention to the pair ahead of him. "I think that's the first time I've gone out anywhere since I moved."

"Well I'm glad I was able to do that for you," Randal replied with a wide smile. "If you want, we could do it again another day." Taylor flashed him a brief smile, but gave no answer; instead, she looked down at the sheet of paper in her hands, which told her what her locker number was and the combination for it.

"Locker four-twenty-six… Do either of you know where that is?" she asked.

"That's a senior locker. Those are right over here," Dustin said as he squeezed between Randal and Taylor to get ahead of them. Taylor followed close behind until Dustin came to a stop next to a short row of isolated lockers just down the hall from the office.

Unlike the other lockers, which were short and double-stacked with built-in locks, these lockers were old school full-length tall lockers with rotating combination locks hanging from the handle. The lock on Taylor's was quite beaten up.

"Shit," Dustin said. He grabbed the lock and gave a quick yank down, opening the shackle with a satisfying click. "They gave you the bum lock."

"What does that mean?" Taylor took the lock from Dustin and looked it over, closing the shackle and then pulling it open again without entering the combination.

"It means you need to get yourself a new lock," Randal added. "If you don't, people are gonna go through your locker and steal your crap."

"Can I get one from the office?"

"You can try, but they typically don't hand out new locks," Dustin said. Just then, the bell sounded for five minute warning. "What's your first class?" Dustin asked when the bell stopped.

"I have AP English with Mrs. Shaye," Taylor said.

"Shit, that old bat's been here longer than the school she works in," Randal laughed.

"I figured she would have got the principal job when Mr. Shaye passed away."

"What happened to Mr. Shaye?" Taylor asked.

"Car wreck," Dustin answered quickly.

"Fell asleep at the wheel," Randal added. "It was a huge deal when it happened."

"May he rest in peace," Dustin crossed himself, and then tapped Randal on the shoulder. "Come on, Mr. Scott is waiting for us." Dustin ran off down the hall and Randal was about to go after him when he felt Taylor's hand on his shoulder. He quickly turned back to face her.

"Were you serious about wanting to go out again later?" she asked him.

"Uh... Well, I…" Randal stammered for a moment before regaining his composure. "I-Yes, I did." He nervously popped the knuckles on his hands as he spoke. "If, you know, you want to, and all that-"

Taylor quickly put a finger on his lip, and he instantly shut up.

"You talk too much," Taylor smiled widely. "What are you doing Saturday?"

Randal crossed his eyes to look down at Taylor's fingers, and his mind drew blank. He opened his mouth to speak a rather eloquently worded sentence that would have conveyed his desire to take her out to dinner, and perhaps a movie, and then a trip to the fountain at the center of Springwood Park, but the only word he managed to get out was nowhere close to that.

"Xbox," he said, but he quickly caught himself and tried to say his real idea. However, Taylor answered before he could.

"Sounds like a date. I'll bring the Hot Pockets." She smiled brightly at him and turned to walk towards the office. Randal tried to watch her as she went, but she had already disappeared into the crowd of students. When she was gone, Randal spent a moment to attempt to process what had just happened, but finally shrugged it off and accepted it.

Taylor looked back at the crowd for Randal, but couldn't see him. She smiled wide and bit her lip in excitement. She couldn't remember the last time she had been excited to go out on a date with a guy, but it was before her parents had died.

She pulled out her phone and was about to text Carson what had just happened (not that he would really care), but she overheard a loud whispering coming from a door nearby. She looked up and realized it was the counselor's office, and the door was cracked slightly open. She walked in closer in an attempt to hear what was being said.

"I'm telling you, there is nothing to worry about. Freddy Krueger is dead," a woman's voice said. Taylor swore the voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't immediately place it. "He's been gone for years, and there's no reason to think he would pop back up now just because someone is in his house."

The woman's voice wasn't loud, but she was clearly speaking angrily to someone, perhaps over the phone. However, Taylor heard the response loud and clear.

"He has before, or do you remember? Lori Campbell and her dad moved in to that house, and then it all went to shit. And that was after a decade!"

No, it couldn't be! Was that Jake's voice?

Taylor looked around and, realizing that nobody was paying her any attention, she slipped in through the door way and into a short hallway with a large glass window to her left. The blinds were closed, so the people arguing inside couldn't see her, but she ducked under a table near the door into the room anyway.

"And what do you think we should do? Just demolish that house with that girl and her family living inside?"

"Better late than never," Jake muttered. Taylor's jaw dropped; were they talking about her? There was silence for a moment, and then the woman spoke again.

"If he does come back, then we'll all be ready for him. We've already taken him on once, and in the three years since then, we've all gotten stronger. And maybe this new girl can help us."

Their whispering got quieter and Taylor had a hard time making out what they said next, but the next thing she heard clearly was Jake saying, "I'm sorry," and then a few seconds later, his footsteps walking out the door. She bit her lip to keep from making a sound as he walked past and out the door into the main hall.

The desk suddenly moved and Taylor gasped, quickly looking up and seeing Carla, the woman from the office, standing over her. Taylor tried to catch her breath from the sudden fright.

"Go to class," Carle said, nodding her head towards the door. Taylor couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. She bolted up and made a beeline for the door.

Once she was out and down the hall, she stopped to catch her breath and to wonder what Carla and Jake were talking about.

She had many questions, such as who Lori Campbell was, and were they referring to Taylor's new house?

And who was Freddy Krueger?

Proceed to next chapter...


	10. Carla

CHAPTER 8

CARLA

Earlier…

The teacher's lounge was empty at seven-forty-five in the morning, which was just how Carla liked it. The last time she had been in here was years ago as a student, and now she was sitting back and enjoying some of the fresh coffee that Ms. Talalay was famous for.

Mrs. Webber hadn't been in yet, so Carla had a few moments to goof off and sip the hot beverage before any real work had to be done. She pulled out her iPhone and looked through for a good game to play, finally deciding on Bejeweled. But before she could get started, the phone began vibrating and sounding off with "Killing Loneliness" by the Finnish rock band HIM, and the name on the display was one she hadn't heard from in weeks: Jacob Daniel.

She'd known Jake for a long time. In fact, Carla's mother, Yvonne, was friends with Jake's mother Alice in high school. Carla had been born only a year after Jake, and the two had grown very close over the years.

However, for the last month or so, Jake had been really distant from her. He hadn't returned very many phone calls top her, and when they texted, he became somewhat monosyllabic. He refused to say what was eating him, and it pissed Carla off to no end.

But now he was calling her. Why now, all of a sudden?

She was about to find out.

"Jake," she began, but she was cut off.

"Are you at the school?"

"Yeah, I am," she answered, somewhat taken aback by his forwardness. "What's up?"

"Good, I'll be there in fifteen," Jake said, quickly hanging up.

_What the shit was that?_ Carla asked herself. _Jake is usually a pretty strange guy, but that was out of character even for him. What the fuck us up?_

Carla grabbed her things and walked out into the main hallway, where students were already walking about before class started, and headed back to the office.

It wasn't too long before she saw Jake coming down the hall through the glass windows. He opened the door and stuck his head in but, instead of coming in, he motioned his head for her to follow him, and then left.

Carla looked over at Mrs. Webber's office, but she seemed to be too wrapped up in what she presumed was an important phone call to notice if Carla stepped out for a few minutes. Carla got up from the desk and followed Jake.

Jake led Carla down the hall, but didn't look back at her until he reached the counselor's offices. He looked around before going in and quickly shut the door behind him. Carla hustled her pace and opened the door after him, finding herself in the short hall that led to the counselor's office. The blinds on the large window on the left side of the hall were wide open, and she could see Jake standing alone inside the room.

"Jake-" she started to say as she entered the room, but Jake again cut her off.

"Blinds," he simply nodded towards the window.

Carla pulled the string and the blinds fell shut with a whoosh, closed the door, and then turned back to Jake.

"Can I speak now, master?" she condescendingly asked him.

"I'm sorry about being so-"

Now it was Jake's turn to be cut off, only not with words; Carla's hand raised up and connected with Jake's cheek so fast that his head spun.

"Sorry? You brush me off for weeks, and that's all you have to say?" She could feel her anger welling up inside her, and she started shoving Jake in the chest to make herself feel better; it partially worked, even though he barely moved when she did so.

"You don't return my calls; you ignore my texts or give these one-word replies; you refused to see me when I came over! What the fuck is going on? It's like you're ignoring me!"

"Carla, you can hate me later," Jake said. "But what I'm about to tell you is very important-"

"More important than me?" Carla asked, her voice dripping with anger and resentment. "What is it, Jake? Huh?" Carla pushed him again. "Huh? What is it, Jakey? What is it?" Her voice started cracking, and her shoves were getting weaker, and Jake knew what was coming next.

Carla started sobbing and threw herself against Jake. She stood there for a few moments as Jake put his arms around her in an attempt to console her.

"I'm sorry I've been distant, but please hear out what I have to say in my defense."

"Your defense? You've been ignoring me for three weeks," she said as she jerked away from him and dried her tears. "What makes you think I'd listen to anything you'd say after three weeks of ignoring me?" She turned around and grabbed the door to leave just as Jake spoke again.

"It's about Freddy!"

Carla froze in her place and felt chills run down her back, and not the good kind of chills that Jake usually gave her. She turned back to Jake, not sure whether he was serious or just said that to make her not leave.

"Don't say that son of a bitch's name again," she said threateningly.

"I think he's about to come back," Jake added.

"And why do you think that?" Carla angrily shot back. "What gives you that idea after he's been gone for two years?"

"Did you know that his house got sold?" Jake asked. "This new girl lives in there now, and she works in the shop."

"Taylor?" Carla asked. "She was in here enrolling a few weeks back."

"You didn't notice her address?"

"No, Mrs. Webber did the paperwork, not me. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Her family lives in his house. 1428 Elm Street."

"So?"

"That doesn't worry you?"

"No, and should it?" Carla asked. "Are you afraid she's going to 'reawaken his spirit' or some shit like that? News flash, Jake: Freddy's dead, and has been for two years. Want to know how I know? Because we fucking killed him! You, me, Dustin, Cameron, Randy, Arnold. Christ, even Alexis gave her life so we could stop the fucker, God rest her soul!" Carla screamed, crossing herself after mentioning Alexis.

"I know, but he's never stayed dead before," Jake countered. "And I have no reason to believe this time is any different."

"I hope you're keeping this to yourself, Jake," Carla said. "You know fear is what gives him power, and spreading these stories is one sure fire way to bring him back again."

"I'm only saying be cautious," Jake defended. "Right now, I'm only telling you and the others to be careful."

"And I'm telling you that there's nothing to worry about. Freddy Krueger is dead. He's been gone for two years, and there's no reason to believe he would pop back up again just because someone is in his house."

"He has before," Jake shot back. "Or do you remember? Lori Campbell and her dad moved into that house, and it all went to shit. And that was after four years!"

Carla shook her head. "And what do you think we should do? Demolish the house with that girl and her family living inside it?"

"Better late than never," Jake muttered to himself as he turned away from Carla. Carla walked over to Jake and placed her hand on his cheek, the same cheek she had slapped minutes before. Jake winced lightly as she touched the mark she left, which was very red and hand-shaped.

"I got you good, didn't I?" Carla laughed. Jake smiled and looked down at her. "If he does come back, then we'll be ready for him. All of us. We've already taken him on once, and since then we've only gotten stronger. And maybe this girl could help us."

Carla dropped her voice further as she continued. "And you know that I'm here for you, no matter what. Our moms pushed us together practically the moment we were born. We grew up together, we were each other's firsts, and I don't think I could survive if I lost you." Carla pulled his face down to hers and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

Jake suddenly felt a surge of energy he didn't have before, and he kissed her back feverishly, like her mouth was holding the secret to eternal life, or something.

Jake took a breath and held Carla's head close to his.

"I love you," she told him.

"I love you, too," he whispered back to her. "And I'm sorry."

"I know," she replied. "Come on, cowboy, school's about to start; I need to get back to the office." Jake nodded and kissed her forehead before walking out the door and down the hall. Carla stepped out behind him and closed the door, but stopped and looked down at the table next to the doorway. She waited until Jake was out of earshot before she grabbed the edge of the table and shoved it backwards, revealing Taylor King huddled underneath.

"How much did you hear?" Carla asked.

"Uh, n-not…" Taylor stammered her response. "Not much. Just, uh…"

"Go to class," Carla quickly snapped, nodding her head towards the door. Taylor couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. She bolted up and made a beeline for the door.

Carla let out a heavy sigh, and waited a few moments before heading back to the office.

Proceed to next chapter...


	11. Bruised

CHAPTER 9

BRUISED

August 29th, 2014

"Hello?" Taylor called when she got home that afternoon. "Uncle Mike? Aunt Kelly?" There was no response from the house; it was completely empty. "Carson?"

Taylor was supposed to have met Carson at the middle school after classes, but he had been nowhere to be seen and he wasn't answering his phone. She had waited for several minutes, but when he still failed to show, she decided to head home and see if he was already there. And now, there was nobody at the house, either.

She hustled up the steps to her room and closed the door. She went over to her computer, which was constantly on, and opened up iTunes to play some music. She hit Random Shuffle and "Don't Hold Back" by The Sleeping started playing. She grabbed the first book off her shelf and flopped down onto the bed and began reading as the music played loudly from her speakers. Shortly after, her phone rang.

"Hola," she said without looking at the display.

"I just called to see if you were missing something," came a familiar voice.

"Cameron, hey! I'm not missing work, am I?" Taylor asked, suddenly worried.

"No, no," Cameron replied. "No, you're scheduled for tomorrow. Listen, Carson is here at the shop."

Taylor sat straight up in her bed, now paying full attention. "Jesus, I told him to stay at the campus; I've been worried sick for an hour now. What the hell is he doing there?"

"He's sitting behind the counter with a black eye, a bloody nose, and a busted lip."

Taylor arrived at the shop moments later to find Carson sitting behind the counter with Cameron, with a young Asian girl holding a blood-soaked paper towel to his nose because he was too out of it to hold it himself. His left eye was swollen shut and bloody spittle drooled from his cracked lip.

"Christ!" Taylor exclaimed, running over to her cousin. "Carson, are you alright?"

"I... Yeah, I think so…" Carson muttered weakly. "A little bruised, but I'll survive. Ouch…"

"Jesus, what happened?"

"I got jumped," Carson said, waving his hand at the Asian girl to remove the paper towel from his nose. "This older kid started following me after school and cornered me in an alley with his cronies."

"What? Why?" Taylor asked in disbelief.

"Because they wanted to, that's why." Carson looked up at Cameron. "I'm trying not to bleed on the comics."

"Don't worry about it, little man," Cameron replied. "Amy is the one that found him, and his little girlfriend. Brought them both in."

Taylor noticed the girl for the first time. "Who is this?"

"Tay, this is Kari. She's in a bunch of classes with me." Carson spoke up. "Ugh, I need a drink. Anybody got a Monster?"

"We've got Monster at the house. Come on, let's get going," Taylor grabbed Carson and helped him to his feet.

"Where's Amy?" Taylor asked. "I wanted to thank her for finding him."

"She's in the bathroom," Cameron answered. "She's not feeling all that great. I'll let her know."

"Okay, thank you," Taylor said. "Well I'm going to take him home and get him cleaned up." She ushered Carson out the door, and the pair were soon out of sight.

_I always did like 'em young…_

Amy gripped the sink sides so tightly her knuckles turned death-white. The water was running hot, but she hardly heard it. Her eyes were shut tight, stomach doing all kinds of flips and churning so fast she felt like she was going to be sick. Her hair was soaked and clinging to the sides of her face, which was glistening with sweat.

She'd been like this all week, with snippets of that night crawling back into her mind. Not in her dreams, but while she was awake, memories flashing in her mind so vividly it was like they had happened only yesterday.

The four scars on her arm burned with ghost pain; it felt real, like they were freshly sliced open again, but she knew it was only in her mind. Still, she instinctively grabbed at the scars, tricking her mind into believing that she was stopping the imaginary bleeding.

_Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…_

Amy gritted her teeth in pain and anger. She tried to steady her breathing, but it wasn't working. She lifted her head and forced herself to open her eyes and look into the mirror, which was fogging up around the edges from the hot water in the sink. She expected to see her own reflection; it wasn't there.

Instead, a girl with a gaunt face and a ponytail of dark hair stared back at her with eyes that were deep brown and full of sadness. Amy felt tears welling up in her own eyes and tried to fight them back. But the face of the girl in the mirror overwhelmed Amy's emotions, and she started crying.

"I'm sorry, Karen…" Amy wept.

_It's your fault, you know…_ Karen spoke, her voice raspy and deep. Karen's face began twitching and shuddering, almost like her image was glitching. _You're the reason I'm dead. You didn't act fast enough to save me, and now-_

_-Now my blood is on your hands!_ Karen's face suddenly morphed and became blood red, her face opening up and splitting like it was melting in a fire. Her teeth became sharp and pointed, and her eyes turned yellow. Freddy Krueger was suddenly staring back through the mirror.

_And yours will be on mine… Ah-hahahahahahaha!_

"_Nooooooo!_" Amy screamed at the image and brought her fist up. She threw her fist at the mirror and smashed it to pieces, the glass shards falling to the floor and into the sink. But Amy didn't stop; she continued punching the stone wall behind the mirror with all her might, a cracking that might have been the bones in her hand sounding with each and every punch. Blood smeared on the stone, but Amy felt no pain at all.

She let out a very loud scream of anger, of pain, of... she wasn't sure exactly why, but she threw her punches harder and harder, her hand now swollen and red with blood. And she still continued.

She continued until someone, she wasn't aware of who, came in and dragged her away from the bloody wall and threw her onto the floor. She then mercifully blacked out.

Proceed to next chapter...


	12. Interlude II

Hello, once again! We've officially reached the one/third point for _Children of Elm Street_. Now, things really begin to pick up, and in this interlude, we learn about what happened to Amy during her time inside Westin. Those who read my short story _The Last Meal_ already have an idea of what happened, but here those events are told from Amy's perspective. Also, I'd like to take a moment to announce that my next story, _Final Destination: Derailed_, is coming along nicely and will see publication beginning in July or August (can't be more specific right now, but look for it around then). Until then, don't fall asleep...

* * *

INTERLUDE II

THE ASYLUM

_The first thing I remembered when I woke up was attempting to open my eyes. My right eye opened just fine, but I had difficulty seeing out my left one. I tried to remedy this by blinking a couple times, but I still had no vision in the eye._

_It was about then that I came to the realization that I had something covering the eye. I could feel it over my skin, and I instantly knew that the entire left side of my face was bandaged. I reached up and touched it with my fingers, and could feel every fiber of the bandages on my fingertips. I wanted so much to rip the bandages off, I began feeling around for the edge…_

_''Be careful with those bandages, sweetie,'' came a soft female voice._

_I tried to speak back to her, but the instant I opened my mouth, I struggled to form words. I realized my mouth was bone dry, and figured I should ask for a drink._

_''Wa… Water…''_ _My voice was dry and harsh, making any noises difficult. Fortunately, the nurse was apparently a step ahead of me and I quickly felt a refreshingly ice cold cup of ice water in my hand. I tried to lift it to my lips, but the nurse again stopped me._

_''No, don't move. Hold still.''_ _She held up what looked like a rubber tube and placed one end in the drink and the other to my lips like a straw. I eagerly sucked in the ice cold water, like it was the first thing I'd had to drink in…_

_How long had I been out? It couldn't have been very long, could it? It felt like only a short time ago since I called Cameron. And after that... Did I fall asleep? What happened last night?_

_''Excuse me, nurse...''_ _I asked, my voice still weak. ''Where am I?''_

_''You're safe now,"'' she said rather vaguely. I wasn't satisfied with that answer._

_''How am I safe?'' I asked her. ''Where exactly am I?'' I was becoming increasingly irritated, and I wanted answers. Why did I have a bandage on my face? Where was I? And why wasn't she telling me?_

_She walked over to the right side of the bed so I could see her properly, and she pushed the tube straw back to my lips. I was too dehydrated to push it away, so I took another long sip; the water tasted like nectar of the Gods, it was so delicious._

_''What do you remember?'' she asked me. I started to reply, but I suddenly couldn't remember anything._

_''I think… I remember calling my boyfriend, Cameron. And after that, I think there was water. I don't believe I was drowning, but…''_

_An image flashed in my head: I was drowning. In fact, I had drowned, I thought. I was lying on my bed and I felt myself become wet. My mattress suddenly turned into water, and I sank down into it like a stone. I had struggled against... I don't know. Something was keeping me underwater, despite all my struggling. I looked up and saw the surface, and desperately clawed and kicked my way towards it. But I just kept sinking deeper and deeper, and the water kept getting darker._

_There was a laugh, evil and demonic. I then became aware that there was a hand on my ankle, dragging me down into the dark water. I was filled with fear, and I fought for my life to get back above water. But I inhaled, and my lungs filled with water; I stopped struggling and accepted the fate that awaited me._

_My fingers broke the surface first, and I was suddenly filled with a second wind. Literally. All the water was gone from my lungs, and I jumped up and inhaled crisp, clean air. I thrashed about the water attempting to get to the sides of the bed._

_When I did, I pulled myself over the side, and tumbled to the floor. Everything went black for a moment. I then remembered lying on the ground, my shirt ripped open, and a man straddled on top of me. He slashed at my arm with his hand, which was covered in four long and sharp claws, and sliced my arm open. I screamed and kicked at him, and he responded by swinging his gloved hand at my face._

_''No, get off me!'' I screamed, but the nurse held me down tightly. I threw her off and sat up, leaping off the bed and bounding for a corner far away from the nurse. I had previously been unaware that I was attached to an I.V. drip, only finding out when I pulled the I.V. pole down with a crash near me and nearly yoinking the needle from my hand._

_''I need help in here!'' the nurse screamed. I reached up and grabbed at the bandages and ripped them away. I knew now that I had both eyes open, but I couldn't see out my left eye! Why couldn't I see?_

_''I can't see!'' I screamed at the nurse, terrified out of my skin. ''Why can't I see?''_

_Suddenly, this enormous black man with a shaved head was on me, picking me up off the floor and wrestling me back to the bed._

_''Calm down, you're alright!'' the nurse screamed at me. ''You're safe now; he can't get you.''_

_I felt a needle go into my arm, and I was overcome by a rather euphoric sensation all throughout my body. I stopped struggling physically, but still fought off unconsciousness with every ounce of will I had left. Which, as it turns out, wasn't much._

_Nighty night…_

_A couple days later, I was standing in the same room as before, staring out the window at the yard. I had come to learn that the place was called Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. A fucking mental asylum._

_The large black man who had wrestled me to the bed was an orderly named Max. He'd been here for well into three decades, and all the patients here seemed to love him. He was very kind and gentle with the other patients, most of whom were around my age._

_I stared out the window and watched as a young girl ran across the yard towards a pair of adults I assumed were her parents. She embraced them both as Max came up behind her with a suitcase, her belongings I believe they were._

_I heard footsteps come up behind me, and turned around. It was Dr. Gossard, a man who was older than my dad with a graying beard and balding hair. I had seen his name on many of my surgery papers._

_After my episode, I was sedated and strapped down for twenty-four hours until they made certain I was no longer a threat to myself. During that time, Dr. Gossard had come in and explained to me what had happened. I was told that the four cuts on my arms required about ten stitches each, and that my face had also been sliced open as well. According to the medical reports, which Dr. Gossard actually let me read, much to my surprise, there had been four large gashes running in parallel from the top left side of my head down the left side of my face and ending at my chin._

_I'd also suffered a small concussion after the attack, and had gone into seizures. It was pretty gruesome, and had sent me into a coma I stayed in for five days, though most of that was from the sedatives the doctors used during the surgery._

_There were even pictures, which showed just how gnarly the attack really was. A couple of the cuts were so deep into my face that the blades had scratched into my skull. That had required more than two hundred stitches on my face alone._

_The blade had also cut through my left eye, which was why I couldn't see when I ripped off the bandages the other day. According to Dr. Gossard, I'd never be able to see out of that eye again; however, he said that they could either leave it there or, if I wanted to look somewhat normal, they could remove it entirely and fit me with a glass eye. I decided to leave it._

_I turned to face Dr. Gossard, who was holding a file in his hands._

_''Your new room is ready,'' he said. He motioned for me to follow him down the hallway._

_My new roommate was an older girl by the name of Karen. She'd already been here for nearly five years. While most kids were placed here voluntarily, some weren't. Karen wasn't. Some of the people here would get to go home. Karen wouldn't. Her parents had essentially abandoned her here when she was fourteen. When she turned 21, she would be considered a legal adult, and thus able to check herself out if her evaluations all came back good, but that was still two years away._

_It was while I was rooming with Karen that I learned why we were all here: Freddy Krueger._

_Freddy. The one I'd been having nightmares about. The one who gave me these scars. He was the reason we were all here._

_Karen was one of the first friends I made at Westin Hills. She was an asthmatic, and required an inhaler at times. She was a sweet girl, and showed me around during those first several weeks. I wasn't allowed to call anyone during my first two weeks, as that was part of the 'isolation and observation' period, and she helped me through that by having me 'rehearse,' for lack of a better word, my first conversation with Cameron._

_When I finally did manage to talk to Cameron, he was in utter shock. Apparently, he and the others believed I had died. Now, nobody had told him that was the case, but nobody had said otherwise, either, so I understood how that could be. But he was beyond happy to hear my voice. I swear he started to cry. Being able to call him and my parents every week or so made the next five months fly by quickly._

_I didn't know how long I was going to be at Westin, but I thought it may not be so bad._

_I was wrong. I was so wrong…_

_When I was in my coma, the doctors were putting this cocktail of drugs into my I.V. It was a mixture of normal sedatives, pain killers, muscle relaxers, the normal stuff. But I learned from Justine, our resident psychologist, that there was another drug called Hypnocil inside my drip. I asked what it was, half expecting some kind of non-answer, but she was razor straight with me: it was a dream suppressant._

_The doctors at Westin knew about Freddy; they knew that he got to us through our dreams and had long ago developed a drug that could effectively stop dreaming. We don't dream, we don't die. It was brilliant._

_Since I was comatose, it had to be given to me in the I.V. Now that I was awake, I just took one pill at lights out and that was it. We were all free to sleep in peace._

_Except Karen. Karen had been here longer than anybody else. She had taken Hypnocil longer than anybody else. It didn't occur to anybody what happens when you take a pill for so long: you develop a tolerance for it, and it eventually doesn't work for you anymore._

_Karen had become immune to the effects of Hypnocil._

_I heard the whimpering and moaning, and knew what was going on before I even opened my eyes. I sat up in my bed and looked over at my roommate; even in the darkness, I could see Karen was having another nightmare._

_For the last few weeks, she had been sleeping restlessly, the nightmares increasing in intensity and frequency. I wanted to tell Max what was happening, but Karen was insisting I keep it secret._

_As I watched her fidget underneath her sheets, she suddenly sat bolt upright in her bed, tossing off the white sheets, which were now soaked through with sweat. Her breathing was shallow and ragged. She tried to steady her as she reached around on the floor around her bed and grasped at her inhaler. She put the device to her lips and inhaled two puffs of the albuterol sulfate before coughing hard at the taste of the medication._

_''Another nightmare, Karen?'' I asked her. She seemed startled by me, but quickly calmed down._

_''Yeah, it was another one,'' Karen said as she put the inhaler back on the floor. She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. ''They're getting worse, Amy.''_

_''Where did you go this time?'' I asked._

_''Into some sort of diner, the Crave Inn,"'' Karen said. ''He chased me into the kitchen.''_

_''Well what happened in there?'' I don't know why, but I was itching to hear the details._

_''It started with me standing in the middle of a road. I look both ways and the road leads nowhere; it just goes on and on forever, in both directions. Across the street is the diner. I walk in; there are just two people in there: this guy with headphones in his ears and the cook. And the cook, he turns into that monster, the same one from all my other dreams.''_

_I hadn't told Karen that I used to dream about the same monster, but I think she knew; the scars on my face, which were at that point stitch-free, were something of a dead giveaway._

_''Wow, this is getting serious,'' I was clearly concerned. ''Maybe you need to talk to Max.''_

_''No,'' Karen said, her voice beginning to break. ''If I tell Max, then he'll tell Justine, and she'll recommend to Dr. Gossard that I be moved to isolation. Again...''_

_''Maybe that's what you need, babe,'' I told her._

_''No, it's not. For some reason, they get worse whenever I go into the isolation room.''_

_''Where is the isolation room?'' I inquired asked. ''I've never seen it, and I've been here nearly six months.''_

_''It's up there,'' Karen said, her voice shaky. ''In the tower."'' Karen nodded towards the barred window. I looked through the bars and up to the five-story tower that stood tall over the rest of the Westin Hills complex. It wasn't illuminated, like the rest of the building. Instead, it stood dark, somehow well defined, against the cloudy night sky. A shiver ran through my spine as I looked at it._

_''I can see why,'' I commented. ''Something just doesn't add up, though,'' I added as I propped my head up with my arm as I lay on the bed. ''You haven't dreamed at all since you've been here. And now all of a sudden, you have nightmares about him for a week straight. I mean, why would they start up now?''_

_"''I'm not sure, Amy,'' Karen said. ''But I don't think I even want to go back to sleep.''_

_"''But you need your beauty sleep,'' I joked. ''Do you think maybe you've developed a tolerance to the Hypnocil?''_

_I looked over at Karen for a response, but she was just staring wide-eyed at me, like I had a third arm growing out of my forehead._

_''What's wrong, Karen? You look like you've just seen a ghost.''_

_Karen still didn't respond, but her face was suddenly filled with terror; she was taking quick, shallow breaths, almost like she was having another asthma attack._

_''Karen?'' I called. ''Karen, baby, snap out of it.'' I stood up and walked over to Karen and grabbed her inhaler off the floor, about to give her a couple puffs from it._

_Suddenly, she flopped backwards onto the bed and started convulsing. I dropped the inhaler in surprise and began pounding on the door._

_''Max! Dr. Gossard! Help!''_

_There was a loud beeping and the door flung open! Max charged in like the cavalry and ran over to Karen's bed. He pinned her down to the bed and placed his hands on her face to stop her from giving herself a concussion._

_''What happened?'' Max asked me. I was sobbing uncontrollably at this point, but I think I managed a response something along the lines of, ''I don't fucking know.''_

_''Go find Dr. Gossard and tell him-'' Max didn't say anything else because at that moment, my face was suddenly covered in what felt like spit, perhaps vomit._

_I wiped the spittle from my face and looked down at my hands; they were red. Blood red._

_I was covered in Karen's blood._

_I screamed. That's all I could do was scream. I looked at Karen's body on the bed, which was busted open like an overfilled balloon, and I kept screaming. Her insides were outside of her, the white sheets dyed red with her blood and intestines. Her lungs had turned into mush, but her heart was still beating. I watched it beat ever slower and slower, until finally, it stopped._

_I backed away from Karen, into the corner, where I dropped to my knees, curled up into the fetal position, and cried until someone stuck a needle in my arm and shot me up with a sedative, and I fell asleep._

_Everyone in Westin knew about Karen's death by the time breakfast came around the next morning. I don't know how I knew, because I slept through it. Max was the one who brought me breakfast, though he had broken protocol to do so by going out and getting me a McDonalds biscuit. He sat on the bed with me while I ate, and tried to get me to talk to him. I don't remember what he said, but I remember leaning on him and crying my eyes out. Again…_

_It was three months before I said another word to anybody other than my parents or Max. I hardly moved from my bed at all except to go eat in the mess hall. I didn't want to stay here any longer than I had to. The first chance I got, I called my parents and told them what had happened and that I wanted to come home. They said they would come pick me up as soon as they could. But they never came._

_I called them back every week, and they always said that I could come home soon. But they still never came. Eventually, they stopped answering when I called. And finally, twenty months after Karen's death, I got a recording saying the number had been disconnected. I'd been abandoned, just like Karen. I was going to rot here, and I was going to end up just like Karen. Dead in a fucking mental asylum._

_I cried again._

_One year later, I got my first and only visitor._

_She said she was going to get me out of here. That I was finally going to come home._

_I asked her name._

_''Alice Johnson.''_

Proceed to next chapter...


	13. Date

CHAPTER 10

DATE

"Ouch, fuck," Amy winced as the woman tweezed another piece of mirror out of the gash in her hand.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any anesthetic right now," the woman said. They were sitting in the office at the back of the comic shop. The woman was Alice Johnson, a forty-four year old blonde woman who looked damn good for her age, with a face that was still passable for late-twenties, and a body to match. "Lesson learned; don't punch a mirror into splinters. Right?" Alice jokingly taunted Amy.

Cameron was sitting near Amy, holding her other hand while Alice preformed minor surgery on the other. Amy had gashed open her hand from the mirror and from punching the cinderblock wall behind it. It was Cameron who had found Amy in the bathroom, and he had called Alice down immediately.

Alice, while now Amy's primary guardian, was also an excellent medical nurse. It was her salary that had built the comic shop, though things were tight right now since Amy had come back. However, Alice cared for Amy just as much as she cared for her own son, Jake.

Once all the glass was removed, Alice sutured the wound and wrapped it in gauze.

"I don't think you've broken any bones," Alice remarked. "Busted your knuckles pretty good, though. We'll take you to the clinic after a while. Why were you punching the wall? Were you having a... nightmare?"

"No, it wasn't a nightmare. It was like a hallucination. I saw Karen in the mirror, and… And I just started punching the mirror and I couldn't stop. It was like I was in a trance."

Alice placed a hand on Amy's cheek. "Do you want me to take you back to the house?" she asked.

"No, I'll be fine," Amy replied. "Thank you for coming down here and fixing me up, Alice."

"No worries; you're family now, and we take care of family." Alice leaned in and gave Amy a small kiss on the forehead. "I'll see you back home for dinner tonight," Alice said as she gathered her things and headed out the door.

...

"Come on, let's get that bandaged up before Aunt Kelly sees it and has a hissy fit." Taylor said as she helped Carson up the stairs, who was having slight trouble walking straight.

"I think he ruptured my ear drum," Carson whined.

"You'll be fine, cuz," Taylor reassured him. The pair walked into the upstairs bathroom and Carson sat on the toilet lid while Taylor rummaged through the medicine cabinet for bandages and triple antibiotic ointment.

"So what exactly happened?" Taylor asked. Carson was quick to respond.

"This jackass has been giving me grief all week. He's supposed to be in high school, but he's apparently been held back a couple times. And he's been picking on me all week because I've been hanging out with Kari. Do you know what 'chink fucker' means?"

"Did he say that?" Taylor asked, eyes wide in shock.

"Yeah, he did," Carson nodded. "Called Kari a gook, whatever the hell that is."

"Next time you see this guy, I want you to knock him on his fat ass! Those aren't very nice words for him to be using. Hold still for a second." Taylor took a cotton ball and poured some hydrogen peroxide on it and dabbed it on Carson's cut cheek. Carson twitched as the peroxide burned momentarily and bubbled on his face.

"Fuck me, Jesus!"

"Hold still, you baby," Taylor scolded as she took the triple-antibiotic and covered the cut with it. "Be thankful it's the weekend; you can stay in your room all weekend and Kelly won't have to see this. It'll be healed by Monday."

"Good to know," Carson said sarcastically. "So, you're going out tonight?"

"How did you know that?" Taylor asked.

"You have your glitter eyeliner on," Carson responded. "You only wear that when you go out with someone."

"How do you know _that_?"

"It's my job to be annoying and notice things like that; I'm your cousin. So, is it Randal?"

"Yeah, it is," Taylor answered. "I'm just going over to his house, play some Xbox."

"Uh-huh, 'Xbox,' right..." Carson placed air-quotes around the word 'Xbox.'

"It's true. Nothing's going to happen, I promise!"

...

It wasn't quite dark when the doorbell rang downstairs. Randal had been at his desk writing in a journal when he heard the chiming, and he hustled faster than he had ever before to get to the door. He jumped the last three steps and landed right in front of the door, turning to see his mother walking in from the living room; Randal held up his hand and waved her away, which she complied with a sour look.

Randal opened the door and saw Taylor standing under the porch light in a tight-fitting purple shirt and ripped jeans, her hair was straightened and she was wearing what looked like ice-blue lipstick.

"Oh..." Randal's jaw dropped as he stared at Taylor. "Hi..."

"Hey," Taylor smiled at him. Randal continued to stare at her, so Taylor spoke again to bring him back to reality. "So, can I come in?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Randal said as he snapped out of his daze. He stepped aside and motioned for Taylor to come inside.

"I've got the Hot Pockets," Taylor said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a massive box.

"Great," Randal said. "I'll go put those in the freezer, and I'll meet you upstairs in a second." He turned to head to the kitchen, but Taylor placed a soft hand on his shoulder and turned him back to face her.

"Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk first," Taylor suggested, flashing her eyes at him. She had to stop herself from laughing as she watched him nod stupidly in agreement.

"Yeah, yeah, that would work," he said quickly. "I'm gonna go put these away before they melt." Randal suddenly realized what he said, and how stupid it sounded, and attempted to correct himself but Taylor simply pointed at the kitchen and sent him on his way. Taylor then ran upstairs to drop off her bag.

The sky was completely dark now, and the street lights had all come on, though the sidewalks were almost completely shaded by the large amount of trees in the neighborhood. Taylor and Randal walked close to each other as they made their way down the sidewalk.

"So have you lived in Springwood your whole life?" Taylor asked. It had occurred to her that, despite having been here for nearly a month, and she still didn't know a lot about Randal. In fact, he probably knew just as much about her as she did about him, which wasn't much.

"No, not really. I moved here when I was twelve. I'm originally from Idaho, of all places."

"Idaho?" Taylor repeated with a chuckle. "I can see why you moved here."

"Yeah, my dad wanted to move closer to his brother, so we packed it up and came out here. Dustin and I started hanging out a lot, and have been thick as thieves ever since."

Taylor noticed Randal's voice dropped when he mentioned his dad, and a smile had crossed his face when he talked about how he had grown closer with Dustin, and she knew exactly what he wasn't telling her.

"How old were you when it happened?" she asked.

Randal turned sharply to face her, his expression dropped. A lump formed in his throat; how did she know?

Taylor saw it in his eyes that he knew what she was talking about, and knew she had overstepped herself.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked-" Taylor started to say, but Randal silenced her with a wave of his hand.

"I was thirteen," Randal answered calmly. "He went to sleep one night, and he never woke up." Taylor's heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly felt sorry for Randal. "How did you know?" Randal asked.

"My parents died earlier this year," Taylor answered. "My aunt and uncle took me in, and I've spent a lot of time with my cousin, as well."

"How is he doing? I heard he got the hell kicked out of him."

"He's a tough little kid, so he'll survive," Taylor said. "I mean, he grew up in Manhattan."

"Is that where you're from?"

"Oh, God no," Taylor laughed. "No, I'm from New Jersey, actually."

"Ah, New Jersey. America's Armpit." Taylor burst out in laughter, and nodded in agreement.

"Hit the nail on the head," Taylor agreed. "But I had a lot of good friends there."

"Which part of New Jersey?"

"Forrest Green," Taylor answered.

"No shit?" Randal stopped, and stared in disbelief. "Did you ever see... _him?_"

"No, but I have a couple friends who did," Taylor replied. "A few years back, during Christmas. We were in Manhattan for the holidays, so we didn't see it, but we came back for the aftermath of it all."

"Jesus Christ, what happened?"

"I still don't quite know the whole story," Taylor admitted. "But I know he's still out there somewhere."

Randal was silent for a moment, contemplative almost, before he spoke again. "He's the one who killed your parents, isn't he?" Taylor nodded.

"The official report says car wreck, but I saw their bodies; they were murdered, and there's not a doubt in my mind: Jason Voorhees killed them."

"Whoa," Randal breathed sharply.

"Yeah... But don't worry; I don't have, like, a revenge vendetta or anything like that," Taylor quickly clarified. "I'm not stupid; I'd be killed."

"Good, because I don't want you to die," Randal added.

"Don't worry, I'm not," Taylor smiled.

By this time, they had wandered into a massive park. There was a bunch of children's play equipment off to their right, as well as a cluster of climbable trees, and there was an enormous fountain at the far end.

"I've been here a month and I've never been in this park before," Taylor said.

"Really now?" Randal asked in disbelief. Taylor merely shook her head. "Come on, then," Randal said excitedly. He grabbed Taylor's arm, gently of course, and quickly pulled her along behind him.

"Wait, Randal, hold on!" Taylor laughed as he dragged her into the park towards the trees. Randal stopped at the base of one tree, a particularly tall one, and began climbing up.

"Randal, what the hell are you doing?" Taylor asked as Randal scampered up through the branches.

"You can climb trees, right?" Randal asked as he stopped for a brief moment to look down at Taylor. "I probably should have asked that before-" Randal didn't have time to finish his sentence as Taylor suddenly began climbing the tree almost as fast as Randal had been, if not faster. She was quickly even with him.

"Shut up and climb, bitch," she said to him as she passed him on her way to the top. Randal was suddenly after her.

They were neck-and-neck the whole way up. However, Randal was the one who reached the top first; he climbed into a large crook with several branches extending out away from it, and settled against the sturdiest branch and waited for Taylor to finish making her way up.

"Good job," Randal said with a laugh. He extended his hand to Taylor and pulled her up onto the branch with him. Taylor nestled herself up against Randal, and turned to look out at the houses surrounding them. Most of them were identical, with wooden and chain-link fences surrounding them, many of them having swing sets and slides in the backyards. It was quite a boring view.

"Not much of a view," Taylor quipped with a chuckle.

"No, it's not," Randal agreed.

"I kinda pictured something more like looking down a hillside on the town," Taylor added.

"Sorry, but this isn't exactly a rom-com," Randal laughed loudly. Taylor started laughing with him, and suddenly felt her body falling back. Randal quickly tossed his arm around her to keep her from falling and pulled her into him.

Her heart skipped a beat, but not from the fear of potentially falling out of the tree; it happened when Randal pulled her to him and she placed her head on his shoulder. His warm hand was on her bare, cold shoulder, and that warmth spread throughout her whole entire body. She took a deep breath and buried herself into Randal's body.

"Comfortable?" Randal asked.

Taylor moaned softly in affirmation. "You're warm," she said. "I'd almost forgotten what this felt like."

"What what felt like?" Randal asked.

"Cuddling," Taylor answered.

"Never done it before."

Taylor looked up at Randal. "I thought you slept with that Sara chick last year."

"I had sex with her, but that's it; nothing else."

"That's always been my favorite part was cuddling afterwards, and making out." Taylor added with a chuckle. Randal chuckled as well, though there was a slight hint of nervousness in his voice. Taylor fell back into silence with a wide grin on her face.

"Well, I think we should be getting back," Randal said. "My mom's gonna be wondering where we are."

"Good idea," Taylor said. She sat up and began climbing down the tree, slightly disappointed, though masterfully hiding it from her voice. "I'm getting kinda hungry, and those Hot Pockets are calling my name."

She landed on the ground beneath the tree and turned back to look up at Randal, who was dangling from a branch about to drop down to another below it. Randal let go of the branch and hit the one below, but began wobbling and tumbled back off the limb and slammed flat on his back on the dirt. His head hit with a dry thud, and a light dust cloud kicked up around him.

"Randy!" Taylor screamed. She ran over and knelt next to him, rubbing his cheek. "Randal, wake up! Please, wake up!" She began shaking his chest furiously, slapping it in what she believed was an attempt to bring him back to consciousness.

"I'm awake, I'm fine," Randal responded breathlessly. He coughed loudly, and Taylor toppled backwards in relief. "Just got the wind knocked out of me," Randal said.

"Jesus, I thought you just KO'd yourself, like permanently," Taylor said. Randal lunged forward and sat up, his entire back covered in dirt and grass stains.

"That was not how I had pictured that going," he said with a cough.

"Are you alright?" Taylor asked. When Randal nodded, she asked, "How did you plan on that going, anyway?"

"Not like that," Randal repeated as he stood and brushed the dust off of his clothes. Taylor stood with him and pointed to a spot on his face.

"You've got a smudge on your cheek," she said. Randal raised his hand and wiped off the cheek opposite of the one Taylor had indicated. "Other one-" An idea quickly hit Taylor. "Oh, hold on," she said, quickly sounding frustrated. She walked up close to him and took her thumb to wipe off the dirt from his cheek. She did so lightly, using a soft touch to clean the dirt.

Once she was done, she lingered for a moment close to his face, hoping that he would finally catch the hint.

"Thanks," he said breathlessly.

"No problem," she replied. Another beat passed and Randal blinked; Taylor felt disappointment crawl back into her stomach and was about to let go of Randal's cheek and turn away again when she felt something press against her lips. She instinctively closed her eyes as Randal, finally, kissed her.

His hand came up and encompassed her cheek, fingers getting tangled in her long blonde hair as he brought her face towards his. Taylor's heart sped up, almost feeling like it was about to explode inside her chest. Randal's other hand found its way to her upper back and he pulled her entire body into his. Taylor felt like all the breath was sucked from her lungs, and she could still feel his lips on hers even after the kiss was broken.

After a moment, Taylor finally caught her breath and looked up at Randal. There was a look of fear on his face, mixed with excitement and a whole host of other emotions.

"That was, uhm..." Taylor started to say, but her words suddenly became lost in her throat. She started to smile, but quickly covered her mouth with her hand to hide it, though failing spectacularly.

"I'm sorry," Randal quickly apologized. "That was... I shouldn't have-"

Taylor cut him off by throwing her lips back onto his, and he returned the gesture by pulling her as close to him as humanly possible. Her lips were soft, and her body warmed with his touch, and Randal realized he didn't want to be anywhere else.

Those Hot Pockets were just going to have to wait.

Proceed to next chapter...


	14. The Boiler Room

Welcome back, loyal readers! This is the moment we've been building for: some real horror action! Our tale now kicks into a higher gear, and secrets about certain characters come out of the dark and into the light! What happens here will affect the rest of the story, so don't miss this thrilling chapter! And we're only just getting started, so don't fall asleep...

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CHAPTER 11

THE BOILER ROOM

_Earlier..._

Walks always helped Jake clear his head. Ever since he was young, he found that walking, jogging, or biking helped him calm down whenever something was nagging at his mind.

Jake was taking one such walk right now. He'd heard from his mom what had happened to Amy and felt like it was more than just a simple "hallucination." And it was because of that that he actually had a solid destination in mind this time.

He was less than a block away from his house when his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the display: Carla.

He sighed heavily, debating whether or not to answer it. He hadn't talked to her since Monday, and maybe his mom was right; a good talk with Carla might do him some good.

"Hello?" Jake held the phone to his ear.

"Jake, hey," Carla spoke softly from the other end of the line. "How are you doing over there?"

She always asked that. Every time she called, she always asked Jake how he was, and she only did it with him; it usually brought a smile to his face, but not today.

"Not so great," Jake admitted. "I've been wrestling with that problem we discussed earlier this week."

"Do you want to come over, and we can talk about it?" Carla asked. "You know my bed always has a spot with your name on it."

"Actually, I'm going for a walk. I was wondering if you wanted to join me, perhaps."

"Just walking? Sounds boring," Carla answered. "I'd love to. Where do you want to meet?"

Jake was silent for a while, and wondered if he should tell Carla where he was actually going. He took a deep breath, and finally answered.

"The boiler room," Jake said.

...

The sun hadn't completely set, and was casting an eerie orange glow on the massive power plant. The rail yard a couple hundred yards across the dirt lot was quiet, the large storage cars full of scrap metal resting nearby on a track that ran next to the massive building.

The building itself had once been a busy electrical plant, but time and circumstances had caused the town's people to forget that fact. The place had closed up back in the early seventies after it was linked to the murders, and had been completely abandoned after the fire that nearly destroyed it completely. It had been suggested many times that the building be completely demolished and the land repurposed. However, no serious proposals ever moved forward, and the landowner, a farmer who also owned the fields of corn a mile away, refused to sell the land back to the city.

The place held significance for Jake for a number of reasons, none of them good. He hated this place with a passion, and wanted nothing more than for it to burn to the ground. But he was still inexplicably drawn to it, and was standing in the shadow the building cast even now.

Darkness had fully descended before he finally heard the sound of approaching footsteps in the dirt; he turned and saw Carla walking briskly towards him with a bag slung over her shoulder. She also had a pair of LED Mag-lite flashlights in her hand and was casting a death glare at Jake.

"You're lucky I don't smack you upside the head with one of these," Carla spat. Jake took one from Carla's hand, but she held it firmly, not letting go for a moment as she continued. "Why are we here? Are you actually trying to stir him up?" She clearly sounded pissed off.

"You can still walk away," Jake retorted. "Just give me the bag, and I'll go alone."

Carla glared at Jake, and begrudgingly let go of the flashlight, holding up her own and turning it on in his face.

"Not a chance in fucking hell am I leaving you on your own. And you're lucky I don't tell your mom about this."

Jake nodded and turned towards the double doors entrance. He picked up a nearby heavy pipe and placed it through the padlocked chains holding the doors closed, and twisted until the rusty chains broke, rattling loudly to the ground.

Jake quickly ushered Carla in through the doors and closed them as he entered behind her. All light vanished, and the inside of the building was enshrouded in total darkness. Jake turned his flashlight on and shone it down a corridor that was lined with lockers and multiple doors on either side.

"This way," Jake motioned.

"You still haven't said what we're doing here," Carla said.

"I'm making sure," Jake answered as he headed further down the hallway.

"I hate it when you're vague like that," Carla added. "Making sure of what?"

"That he's still there..." Jake's eyes darted about the hall, as if searching for something hidden. Carla shone her light on the wall and noticed an old cork pin-up board filled with dissolving employee notices and missing children posters. Carla recognized the children in the posters as the murder victims. One poster was falling off, hanging by one thumbtack, and Carla plucked it from the board and shone her flashlight on it.

The girl in the poster was a pretty young girl, about nine or ten, in a schoolgirl dress with shoulder-length blonde hair and a hair band. The missing date was 7/17/70.

It was his last victim, she knew that, because they torched the factory, and him inside it. They never found her body.

Carla stuffed the missing poster into her pocket and walked after Jake. As they got deeper into the building, Carla could see scorch marks on the wall from the fire. She traced her finger along the stone wall, and half expected to come away with ash on her hand.

"It's so surreal, isn't it?" Carla asked Jake, who was at the end of the hallway looking about.

"Yeah, it is," Jake said. He shone his light down the hallway and motioned for Carla to join him. "It's down here, come on."

The hall was longer than the one they had just come down, and this was one was visibly more destroyed; some of the walls here had been drywall, and had been burned away by the fire. Several holes had been burnt into the wall, exposing the inner struts of the wall and hundreds of yards of metal wiring. The pair walked down the burned out hallway came to a massive metal door with a plaque across it that read two eerily familiar words: boiler room.

"You don't seriously want to go back down there, do you?" Carla asked, her voice quivering with fear. "Aren't you afraid you could...?"

"No, I'm not," Jake said firmly. "Because I'm not afraid of him. He can't get you if you're not afraid of him, remember?"

"But you were saying earlier this week that you were worried he could come back," Carla placed a cautionary hand on Jake's shoulder. "You're flopping back and forth on this, and it's all so confusing. Make up your damn mind, Jake," Carla finished, breathing heavily.

"Do you trust me?" Jake asked after a period of silence.

"Jake, what has got you so worked up about all this all of a sudden? Is this about what happened to Amy this afternoon?"

"You know about that?" Jake asked in disbelief.

"Of course I know," Carla answered sharply. "It was your mom that stitched her up; I'd be surprised if there was anybody in our group who actually didn't know."

"Mom said Amy had a hallucination," Jake said. "I think it may have been more than that."

"Do you think she had a full blown nightmare?"

"No; according to Cameron, she was awake the whole time, just punching the mirror into splinters." Jake mimed punching in the air. "And then she split her hand open on the wall behind it. But I do think she saw Freddy, and that's why she shattered the mirror. Or she saw something that really frightened her, and I don't know what else that could be."

"Could she have skipped her meds?" Carla asked. "I mean, she lives with you guys, so maybe your mom could check that."

"It's possible, but I want to cover every possible angle," Jake said as he looked back towards the door. "If he's still down there, we'll know we're safe."

Carla nodded in agreement and put her hand on the push bar to open the door; it was jammed. "Jake, a little help?"

Jake put both hands on the bar and started pushing on it. The door budged slightly after a couple pushes, but still refused to open.

"Do you hate your mom for taking in Amy?" Carla asked as Jake backed up slightly and Sparta-kicked the door.

"No, of course not," Jake said with a grunt as he brought his foot into the metal door. "I hate Amy's parents-" BAM! "-for abandoning her-" BAM! "-in the fucking-" BAM! "-NUTHOUSE!" Jake leaped into the air and kicked the door with both feet, finally forcing the door to swing wide open as he fell flat on his back with a thud. The hallway extended slightly beyond the door, before curving downward into a set of spiral stairs.

"You know, I haven't been down here since that night," Carla said as she bent over to help Jake to his feet, who let out a wince of agony.

"Me neither," Jake answered breathlessly, brushing himself off as he stood. "Apparently, neither has anyone else."

A shudder shot up Jake's spine, as he knew what that could mean, but he said nothing as he stepped through the doorway and started down the spiral steps.

He reached the landing onto the first elevated walkway, but the last four or five steps were missing. He jumped to the walkway below and turned back as Carla was coming down.

"Jump," he said, holding his arms out. Carla did so instinctively, and landed in Jake's arms; he closed them tightly around her tiny frame and set her down.

"Thanks," she said softly. Carla wrinkled her nose; the acrid smell of smoke still lingered in this room, even after forty years. The walls and other equipment and machinery were scorched solid black, most of it melted into twisted and grotesque shapes. Metal support columns towered from the floor below to the ceiling just overhead, and ash clung to all surfaces here. Carla again wiped her finger, this time against a metal railing and came away with a fingertip blackened with soot.

"Jesus," she whispered. She looked down at the railing and saw a set of fingerprints on the metal. Her jaw dropped in disbelief as she reached out to touch it-

-_Alexis jumped down from the broken steps and stumbled on her landing, grabbing the railing for support-_

-but Carla decided against it. She looked down the walkway and saw Jake shining his light down into the boiler room below.

"Jake," Carla said. "Her fingerprints are still here."

Jake either wasn't paying attention and couldn't hear her, or was ignoring her. He instead found the ladder that descended the walkway and down into the boiler room. Jake quickly climbed down the ladder and Carla followed close after.

"I didn't expect her fingerprints... It's been two years, and they're still there." Carla said, her voice quivering as she reached the ground.

"This place is a grave; nobody's been here to disturb it," Jake answered. "Everything is exactly as we left it."

"It's as if she's still there..." Carla was clearly terrified now, to the point of shaking.

Jake reached out, took Carla's hand into his and gripped it tightly. "Everything's going to be fine, Carla," Jake reassured her. Still holding her hand, he pulled her along close behind him as they ventured deeper into the boiler room.

"Do you remember which one it was?" Carla asked. "There's a dozen boilers in here."

"You'll know it when you see it," Jake answered. "I think its right up here." Jake led Carla into a massive lowered area of the boiler room, which was likely at one point a loading dock, with a short three steps leading down into it. There were three large closed overhead doors on the other side of the small arena, and door entering a large room on the far right side. The wall extended upwards a quarter of the way to the roof, and the rest of it was all metal grates all the way to the top.

"Is that... that's his office, isn't it?" Carla asked. It sure was; she could clearly see the inside was torched completely, covered in ashes and dust.

"Then that means the boiler is just on the other side of that wall." The followed the railing alongside the wall of the office and came to another large area like the loading dock, but this one had a single, towering boiler on the other side.

Jake and Carla descended the steps into this area, and crossed to the boiler.

"That's it, isn't it?" Carla asked. "That's where you put... _his_ body, right?"

"You don't remember?" Jake asked.

"No, I was unconscious at that point, remember?" Carla added the "remember" in a mocking tone, and Jake just chuckled nervously at it.

"Yeah, that's it," Jake answered affirmatively. "Couldn't risk carrying out the bodies, so we stuffed his inside the boiler and burnt it."

"And Alexis' body? What did you do with hers?" Carla asked. She turned around and shone her flashlight along the wall, following it back to the railing, not at all expecting to see a rotting corpse just a couple feet behind where she stood.

"Ahhhhh!" Carla screamed loudly, stumbling backwards and unable to take her eyes off the body. It was charred black, ash-covered from the clothes and flesh that had burned with it.

"Carla!" Jake screamed out. Carla didn't hear him, as she was scrambling backwards on the floor. Jake bent down and stood in front of her to block the view. "Carla, don't look!"

Carla's whole body was now clearly shaking, her voice cracking, and she was on the verge of crying. "I don't think I... can..." Carla started hyperventilating, and placed her hand over her chest as she tried to steady her breathing. "Is that... Is that Alexis...?"

"Carla, look at me, and breath-"

"IS THAT ALEXIS? That's Alexis! I can't breathe!"

Tears welled up in her eyes as she threw her bag to the ground and opened it up, searching or something. She rummaged through the contents, including a one-gallon gas container and a can of salt, but became frustrated when she couldn't find what she was looking for.

"Where is it?" she asked herself. "I can't fucking breathe, and I can't fucking find it!" She stood up and, with an audible sob, kicked the bag as hard as she could, sending the contents flying onto the floor.

Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic inhaler. He removed the cap from the mouthpiece and gently pulled Carla close to him. He put the inhaler to her quivering lips and commanded her to inhale three times. With each sharp inward breath, Jake pressed the button that released the medication into Carla's lungs.

When she was done, Carla threw herself into Jake's arms, and he hugged her and held her close.

"What... What happened to her?" Carla cried into Jake's chest, peeking out at the skeletal corpse. Jake suddenly realized that, even though Carla knew Alexis died, she didn't know how, or what happened to her body.

"Freddy..." Jake began, his own voice now shaking badly. "After you passed out, Freddy tried to kill me, and she saved me. And he returned the favor by burning her alive. She screamed, begging me to help her, but I couldn't move. I refused to move, and she burnt alive in front of me. She screamed, and screamed, and she continued to scream as her clothes and flesh burned away, until she was nothing but a burnt skeleton. And still, she kept screaming..." Jake gripped Carla tighter, burying his face into her shoulder.

"She's dead because I refused to move... But she fought back, and with her last breath, she took his knives, and stuck them in Krueger's neck."

Jake blinked and-

-_Krueger stood over Jake, walking slowly, savoring the moment. Just as Freddy raised his finger blades to end him, Alexis, her body aflame, half her skin and clothes burnt away, came up and grabbed the glove, wrestling Krueger to the ground for it. The pair fell and Alexis gained the upper hand for a brief moment; that was all she needed. She grabbed the glove, still on Krueger's hand, and shoved the four blades deep into Krueger's neck-_

-and shoved the image from his head. "We never had a chance to move her. You were dying, and we had to get out of here and get you help. We sealed the doors, and hoped nobody ever found out what happened."

"Let's just do this shit and get the fuck out of here," Carla said with a shiver, pulling away from Jake and approaching the boiler.

"Agreed," Jake said as he approached the boiler. There were scorch marks around the boiler door, and a large white X crossed the door.

"You never answered my question," Jake said.

"Which one?"

"Do you trust me?" Jake repeated his question as he pulled out the pipe he used to break the chain on the door outside. "Just yes, or no."

Carla looked at the door, her heart racing and hands trembling. What if the body really wasn't there? What would that mean? Would Jake be right?

"I..." she started to say. She looked up at Jake, who was positioning the pipe against the handle to leverage it open.

"Yes, and I open this door," he explained. "No, and we pack up your bag and get the fuck out of here. No questions, no judgments."

Carla sat silent for a long moment, but she soon nodded. "Yes, I trust you," she finally said.

Jake nodded back, and lifted the pipe out of the door. He brought it down quickly and whacked the door handle with it, jarring it loose. The door swung open freely and the dark insides of the boiler were revealed. Jake held up his hand and motioned for Carla to step back away from it. He bent down and peered inside.

Before he had the chance to raise his flashlight, something moved inside the boiler and was flung out the door. Jake leapt back and Carla screamed sharply again as the object landed between them. It was round, and dark brown, ripped and tattered along the edge.

"It's just his hat," Jake said. He picked it up and peered inside the boiler with his flashlight. Just as he expected.

The rotten skeletal remains of Freddy Krueger lay at the bottom of the boiler, completely intact. The muscles had dried and rotted, leaving the skin to wrap tightly around the skeleton. The glove lay in the ash pile near the head, still attached to the hand that wore it.

"Rot in hell, you fucking bastard," Jake whispered. He tossed the hat back into the boiler and walked over to Carla's bag. He grabbed the one-gallon gas can, as well as the container of salt, and took them both back to the boiler.

"Today, Freddy's body. Soon, we're gonna burn this whole fucking building down to the ground." Jake said firmly as he opened up the salt container. "I should have done this a long time ago." He threw the salt on Krueger's body until the container was empty, then threw it in the boiler. He opened up the gas container and began tossing the gasoline onto the body. Once the gas container was empty, he dropped it to the ground and pulled a matchbook from his pocket. He struck one match, and used it to light the others in the book before tossing it into the gasoline.

Krueger's body erupted into flame, burning the skin from the skeleton, the stench fouling both Jake and Carla's nostrils. Carla stepped close to Jake and took his hand in her's.

"What are we going to do about Alexis?" Carla asked.

"One day, I'm going to come back and burn this whole building to the ground," Jake said. "On that day, I'll take her body as far away from here as I can and bury her somewhere nice. Like Lake Eerie, perhaps. She always loved that place."

"Sounds nice," Carla said. The two sat and stared at the burning boiler, holding hands and remaining long after the fire had burnt itself out.

Proceed to next chapter...


	15. Halloween Fright

_Better grab a drink and some snacks, loyal readers; we're in for a long one today! This chater is twice as long as I had originally planned, because "word vomit." However, I think you'll all enjoy the end result regardless. Until next time, don't fall asleep..._

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CHAPTER 12

HALLOWEEN FRIGHT

_Two months later..._

October 30th, 2014

Taylor loved Halloween. It had long been her favorite holiday, and this was looking like it could be the best one yet. She was putting the finishing touches on her costume, that of the one, the only, the Amazing Spider-Gwen! She'd been working on it all month, ever since she saw that issue of "Edge of Spider-Verse" that featured the character Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman.

Since the character was brand-new, Taylor had to make the entire costume from scratch. The main piece of the costume was a thin white hoodie with the inner lining of the hood, as well portions of the sleeves, colored a maroon color with intricate light-blue web patterns. The lower half of the hoodie was solid black, though the black came up over the chest to mimic a deep v-neckline dress. The black half would be paired with a set of black leggings. The sleeves had been altered drastically. Most of the hoodie's sleeves had been removed, and replaced with the sleeves from a white Morphsuit, which ended in a pair of solid white gloves. The material on the Morphsuit was more formfitting, and allowed her skin to breathe more in the suit.

Right now, she was placing the finishing touches on the mask, which she had also taken from the Morphsuit. The mask was going to be solid white with only light pink outlines where the white eyes were.

The phone rang and she picked it up without looking at the display when she answered it.

"Hey, baby," Randal said. "Look out the window."

Taylor buried her face in her palm, half from exhaustion. "Do I have to?" she asked with mock seriousness.

"Please?" Randal added. Taylor laughed and rolled across the room in her rolling chair to the window facing across the street. She instantly saw why Randal wanted her to look.

He was sitting on the roof of his house in his Spider-Man costume, solid red and blue with black webbing lines, identical to the costume from the Toby Maguire films.

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever he fucking wants," Randal sang as he held the phone to his ear and spoke through the mask, muffling his voice slightly. Taylor laughed loudly into the phone.

"Your turn," he said, lifting the bottom of the mask up so he could speak unmuffled.

"It's not ready yet," Taylor claimed. "I'm still working on it."

"Bull crap, you said yesterday that all that was left was the mask. You've been working on it since you got home at four, and it's nearly ten now." Randal chuckled at Taylor's lame excuse.

"Is it really that late?" Taylor wondered. Sure enough, the clock on the table agreed with Randal.

"Come on, just a quick peek," Randal begged over the phone.

"Alright, fine," Taylor finally agreed, smiling. She rolled away from the window and stood from her chair. Though she was clear across the street and at the far end of her room, Randal could still see her clearly, removing both her shirt and her bra and dropping them to the floor, exposing her bare chest to Randal, and any passers-by who were walking down Randal's side of the street and happened to look up.

Randal wondered if she knew that he could see everything from where he was sitting, and was doing this on purpose to tease him. Before he could come to a solid conclusion, his question was answered for him as Taylor turned her backside to the window and also dropped her pants, flashing Randal with her ass before pulling on the costume top and the black leggings. She then slipped on a pair of black and white flats she bought for the costume, and the last thing she did was stick a Bluetooth earpiece on before pulling the mask down over her face and raise the hood over it. Soon, she was back at the window, opening it to climb through onto the porch roof.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I love it," Randal replied. "And the thing with the Bluetooth speaker is actually pretty clever; I may steal that idea from you."

"You'd better not, dork," Taylor threatened. "Or I may use my spider powers to beat you to a bloody pulp."

"Ooh, I'm shaking," Randal retorted. "Is that glow paint you're using for the outlines of the eyes?"

"Yup, how can you tell?"

"You missed a spot on the left eye," Randal said. "There's a streak that's not glowing."

"Oh damn," Taylor cursed. "I said I wasn't done with it yet."

"Well you'd better hurry up and finish it; we've still got class in the morning before we head out trick r' treating tomorrow night," Randal said.

"That's what I was doing, jerkwad," Taylor taunted.

"You love me, and you know it," Randal said mockingly. Taylor's only response was her white-gloved middle finger.

"I love you, too, baby," Randal chuckled. He continued laughing as he headed back into his window, but stopped when he heard Taylor's voice across the street.

"Hey!" she called out loudly. Randal turned back with the phone to his ear and watched Taylor pull the hood back and yank the mask off, her blonde hair spilling out of the mask.

"For real, though, I love you," she spoke into the headset. She watched as Randal took off his mask and spoke into the phone.

"I love you too, baby," Randal said again. "I'm not playing the 'hang-up' game, though." Randal laughed loudly as Taylor spoke.

"Neither am I," she said, pressing the button on the speaker to disconnect the call. Randal was momentarily stunned.

"She really hung up on me." He smiled at her one last time from across the street before disappearing back into his house.

Once Taylor was back inside her house, she pulled off the top of the suit and laid it on the foot of her bed. She stretched her arms out and bent over backwards, popping her back in the process.

"Oh, Jesus," she moaned to herself. That felt almost as good as her first kiss with Randal. And that had been one hell of a dizzying experience.

She'd always liked Randal since that first time she met him. He was cute, and clearly a massive dork, which suited her just fine, being a massive dork herself. And it was fairly obvious that he had a crush on her, too, but was just too timid to do anything on his own. Most girls would have shied away from behavior like that, but Taylor decided that love was like madness: all it takes is a little push.

After their little moment in the park, Taylor and Randal had gone back to Randal's house, where they watched boatloads of cheesy horror movies and ate the entire box of Hot Pockets before falling asleep together. Taylor woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than she had felt in months, perhaps years.

Over two months had passed since that first kiss back at the park, and things had gone extremely well since then. Not just for her and Randal, of course. But Jake seemed like he had finally seemed to emerge from that funk he had dug himself into. Apparently he'd worked out whatever issues he'd been having, and was back on track.

Even Ms. Miller had taken a liking to Taylor. She'd approached Taylor after school the Monday following her date with Randal. Taylor initially thought she was going to be reprimanded for eavesdropping on the conversation with Jake, but she only asked what Taylor had heard of it. Taylor was honest when she answered that she hadn't heard much, and that was it for the subject. They talked for nearly an hour about other random stuff, and had since become close friends. It was also through Carla that Taylor learned about Amy's mental break at the shop.

The stuff with Amy was truly bothersome. She had good days, as well as bad ones, and the hallucination that caused her to split her hand wide open was definitely a peak moment. She flopped back and forth, but she'd been getting slowly, progressively worse.

However, Jake and his mom, Alice, seemed to have a handle on it for the most part. What Amy really needed was for everyone to let her know that they cared for her, and would do everything they can to help her get through this difficult period of her life. She needed friends, and she had a whole host of good ones at her disposal.

Taylor threw on the shirt she was wearing earlier and tossed the bra into her laundry pile in the corner. She sat back down at her table to put the finishing touches on her mask. When she was finished, she set the mask on a Styrofoam head and collapsed onto the bed, further popping her back.

Her phone vibrated and chimed once more; a text message. Taylor pulled grabbed her phone off the sheets and looked at the message; it was a Snapchat from Randal.

It was a picture of him in his Spider-Man suit, without the mask, and a caption that read, "Next time you change clothes, you may want to consider closing the curtains."

Taylor smiled widely; so he _was_ looking after all, just like she wanted.

"Maybe I didn't want to," she said the words as she typed them in response. "Maybe I will next time, maybe I won't. You'll just have to keep watching and see." She hit send, and only had to wait a few seconds before getting her response.

"Tease" was all Randal's return message said.

"That's the idea, big boy," she chuckled to herself as she flipped off her light, and fell asleep in moments with a wide smile on her face.

...

October 31st, 2014

"Are you sure it doesn't look stupid?" Carla asked. Taylor stood behind her in Carla's office at school. The final bell had rung, and all the students had gone home, save for a few remaining for after-school activities.

Carla was putting on her new costume, and was wanting Taylor's opinion. The costume was a Deadpool costume, but with a white and pink color scheme, similar to Taylor's Spider-Gwen costume, instead of the traditional black and red.

"It looks great, Ms. Miller," Taylor said. "Honestly, it looks great."

"Taylor, please don't call me Ms. Miller; it makes me sound like I'm old."

"And you're not?" Taylor laughed.

Carla looked at Taylor and rolled her eyes. "Hardy-har-har! I oughta give you detention for that remark!" she exclaimed with a straight face, which was quickly demolished by fits of laughter from both of them.

"I'm just worried that it shows off all the wrong curves, you know?" Carla continued when the giggles wore off.

"I don't know what you're so worried about," Taylor said. "I mean, Jake isn't going to care about what you look like in a Halloween costume; he's already in love with you."

"Yeah, I know," Carla conceded. "But it's a self-conscious thing. Maybe if I put on the belt..."

"Carla, relax, you look badass," Taylor assured her.

"Thanks," Carla said. "Well, we'd better get going. Grab your shit and let's GTFO."

The pair gathered up their bags and headed out the door to the school parking lot where Carla's car, a gold Azteka, was parked in the front row.

"So, how's everything going with Randal?" Carla asked as she pulled the car out onto the road a short time later.

"It's going great so far," Taylor gushed from the passenger's side. "He's just been really awesome, and he's probably the coolest guy I've ever met!"

"Good to hear it," Carla said, keeping an eye out for any oncoming cars. "From what I understand, you two are a perfect match."

"I guess you could say that," Taylor admitted. "What about you and Jake? You guys seem like your relationship is a bit more... Oh, what's the word I'm looking for?"

"Complicated," Carla finished for her. They were coming out of the parking lot now, and Taylor could already see several kids walking the sidewalks, going house-to-house. "Complicated would be a good word."

"How so?"

Carla shook her head, and laughed it off. "It's always been complicated. Jake's a complicated guy. But him and I, we've been through so much together."

"How long have you two been together?" Taylor asked.

"Oh Jesus," Carla sighed. "We've been practically joined at the hip since I was born. My mom and his mom were close friends growing up, and Jake and I literally grew up together. And eventually, we started going out. But, it's been off-on for a while. I love him, I know he loves me, but I don't know how it's going to work out in the end."

"Wow, that was a mouthful," Taylor chuckled.

"I know, and it was probably cheesy as all hell," Carla admitted.

"Yeah, it was," Taylor laughed with Carla, who turned into the neighborhood Jake lived in.

"I don't think I've ever been to Jake's house before," Taylor remarked as they pulled through the streets. The houses here were a bit more upscale than most others in Springwood, an odd place to live when the main source of income was a comic shop.

"He isn't exactly the type of person to telegraph that he's loaded, you know?"

"Jake's rich?" Taylor asked, somewhat shocked.

"Of course he is," Carla replied matter of factly. "Twenty-four year old male with no college education. How else do you think he's able to afford the insurance on that Camaro of his, not to mention the Camaro itself?"

Taylor shrugged in agreement, Carla's argument making quite a bit of sense. It did explain a couple things, for sure.

"We're here," Carla said after a few minutes. She pulled into the driveway of a white two-story house that was steeped in Halloween decorum.

Carla came up into the driveway and shut off the ignition of the car as she stepped out. Jake was on the porch, looking up on the roof of the porch covering at a middle-aged blonde woman hanging a black Ghostface doll on a line that ran from one corner of the house down to the tree at the front of the yard.

"Hi, Alice!" Carla called up to the woman, who turned around and smiled at Carla.

"Hey Carla! I'll be down in a minute!" Alice called down. Carla rushed up to the porch and practically leapt into Jake's arms. He embraced her tightly and the pair started making out immediately.

"Whoa, that's a weird thing to see," Taylor muttered to herself. "Your assistant principal making out with your boss from work. Oy, this is nuts."

"Hey," Alice called down to Taylor. "Check this shit out!" Alice pressed a button and the Ghostface doll began screaming, eyes flashing with lights as it travelled down the line towards the tree at the front of the yard over the sidewalk. The doll squealed loudly as it passed right by Taylor, who jumped back in surprise at the doll, which then began to slowly retract to its perch above the porch.

"Wicked cool, right?" Alice asked as she descended the ladder.

"It is," Taylor said. "You're Jake's mom, I take it."

"The one and only," Alice said as she walked towards her. "Glad to finally meet our newest employee. It's Taylor, right?" Taylor nodded in agreement. "Well come on in, we're gonna have a quick dinner before we head out."

It was then that Taylor could smell food cooking on a grill, presumably somewhere behind the house. "What's cooking?" Taylor asked.

"We're having a cookout. I've got Dustin and Randal out back cooking hotdogs, burgers, and steaks; they should be done soon."

"Yummy. Is Amy here?" Taylor asked as they stepped onto the porch. "I wanted to check on her, see how she's doing."

Alice nodded, but a depressed frown crossed her lips. "She's not exactly in the greatest shape, though."

"How so?"

"You'll see," Alice answered. "She's upstairs; her's is the last room on the left." Alice opened the front door of the house, and Taylor stepped inside.

...

"_When I was... a young boy... my father took me into the city to see a marching band..._

_He said, 'Son when, you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?_

_He said, 'Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made?_

_Because one day, I'll leave you, a phantom, to lead you in the summer, to join the Black Parade..."_

Amy had the music playing in her noise-cancelling headphones going at full blast, which was why she didn't hear the door to her bedroom open up, or Taylor stepping inside and closing it behind her.

Taylor observed Amy for a moment, noticing that Amy's auburn hair was now dyed an unnatural shade of red. The room itself was very dark, light through with black lights. Rob Zombie was clearly the interior designer of this room; the walls were plastered with posters for obscure death metal bands, and the vanity mirror behind the computer was almost entirely blocked out with de-motivational stickers, which aided in hiding Taylor's presence a moment longer.

Amy herself was hunched over her desk, a tattered long-sleeve sweater covering her stick-thin arms. The sleeves were frayed and stretched out to the point of unravelling.

"Hey, sweetie," Taylor finally spoke up. "Feeling better?"

Amy jumped in surprise, jerking her headphones off her head and letting out a small scream before realizing it was just Taylor.

"Fuck, don't sneak up on me like that," Amy chastised. "My panic attacks are bad enough already."

"Sorry," Taylor apologized. She noticed the bandages were still dressing Amy's hand, but was partially hidden by her sleeves. "Why are you wearing a sweater? It's almost seventy outside."

Amy looked down at her sleeves and quickly pulled them back towards her torso. "No reason," she quickly replied. "I get cold easily."

"Fair enough," Taylor said. "So this is your room?"

Amy shrugged. "It has been for the last few months. My old room is probably occupied by some snot-nosed brat or maybe even some fitness equipment."

Confusion spread across Taylor's face. "What are you talking about?"

"My room at my old house," Amy said. "Back when I still lived with my parents."

"Wait, so Alice isn't your mom?"

"God, no, but I wish she was. My own parents were worthless cowards." Amy smiled as she turned back to Taylor. "Did you actually think I was Jake's sister?"

"Thought crossed my mind," Taylor admitted.

"No. I mean, technically I am. Adopted." Amy laughed. "When I was fifteen, I had what some would call a mental breakdown. So, I was sent off to Westin Hills for a few years. And while I was there, my real parents decided that they didn't want a nutcase for a daughter, and they abandoned me there."

"God, that's horrible," Taylor said as she walked around the room, tracing her hand over a massive poster featuring Harley Quinn and the Joker in what appeared to be a Waltz, their faces inches away from a romantic kiss. "Why would they do that?"

"I wish I knew. I wish I could find them and ask them, but they left no forwarding address and all their contact numbers were disconnected."

"That's not right," Taylor said. "They can't do that. They shouldn't be allowed to do that."

"They can. I leaned when I got out that they signed over custody to the State of Ohio. I was legally no longer their child. I spent three years in there practically alone, with no contact with anybody in the outside world, not knowing if anybody cared to remember me. I thought Cameron had moved on, forgotten me. But that's when Alice found me, and she's the one who got me out of there."

Amy reached under the desk and pulled out of thin air (or a well hidden mini-fridge) two Red Bulls, throwing one to Taylor.

"That's incredible," Taylor said as she opened up and took a sip.

"I'm like the daughter she never got to have, apparently," she signed. "She never remarried after what happened with Jake's dad."

"And that was...?"

"Car wreck, right after Jake was conceived. Killed by a drunk driver. Less than a year after her brother killed himself, too."

"Shit, that has to suck," Taylor said.

"Yeah, it does," Amy brushed off the subject. "So, I guess we're about to get going?"

"I think Alice said we're going to eat first."

"Figures. She loves to cook." Amy pulled out a water from the mini-fridge and noticed that Taylor had been staring at her hair for a solid minute. "Oh, right, the hair."

"Yeah, I wanted to ask, but didn't know if it was appropriate."

"It's fine; it's for my Halloween costume."

"And you're going as...?" Amy smiled and walked over to her closet, pulling out a long purple shirt with two lighter purple, almost white, stripes at the bottom. Also on the hanger was a lime-green scarf, as well as a pair of deep purple leggings.

A moment of realization came over Taylor's face. "That explains the red hair," she said. "So, is Cameron going to be Fred or Shaggy?"

"Fred," Amy said with a nervous tick. Her face twitched and she jerked her head around as if trying to shake a mosquito, hoping Taylor wouldn't notice it.

Though Taylor did notice, before she could say anything, a call came from downstairs: "Girls, come and eat!"

"And that's cue. Come on, let's go eat," Amy stood from the chair and headed out the door and down the stairs.

Taylor followed behind as they entered the kitchen. Alice pulled a giant tray of toasted buns out of the oven as Dustin carried a giant pot of mashed potatoes out to the deck in the backyard.

"Hot pot coming through!" he called out. "Randy, hurry up with those wieners!"

"How about you take one of my wieners and stuck it up your-" Randal, who was at the opposite end of the deck, turned and saw Taylor coming out of the house behind Dustin. She turned and smiled as she approached him.

"Randal, be nice to your cousin," she said tauntingly. She could see the outline of his Spider-Man suit underneath his normal clothes, and giggled excitedly. "With great power comes great-"

"Hotdogs," Randal interrupted by picking up a hotdog with his tongs and holding it in the air, smiling wide. His smile vanished when Taylor leaned in and, rather seductively, nibbled on the tip of the vaguely phallic log of pork.

"But that was _my_ wiener," Randal chuckled as Taylor bit off the dog.

"Mine, now," she replied with a smile. She held up the paper-towel covered plate near the grill so Randal could begin pulling the meat off the grill. Jake, Carla, Dustin, Cameron, Amy, and Alice were all sitting down at the table while Taylor and Randal loaded the plate.

"Come on, slowpokes!" Alice grinned as Taylor brought the massive plate over to the table and set it down in the middle. "Alright, you all know the drill; hands up," Alice said as Randal and Taylor sat down in adjacent spots. Alice took both Jake and Amy's hands, who in turn grabbed the hands of the people next to them until everyone was joined, and Alice bowed her head to pray.

"Dear Father, we thank you for this meal that you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for keeping us safe each day, and ask that you continue to do so on this night, and on the many nights to come. We also ask that you keep watch over the friends that we have lost, and to keep safe the new ones we have made. In your name, we pray, amen."

A few hours later, Taylor was starting to regret her costume choice. Or, at least, the thin material she made it from. It was nearly freezing, and she was getting chills as she walked with the rest of the group.

Amy was wearing her Daphne costume, and Cameron had a white Fred outfit with the ascot and all. Jake didn't have a costume, but his mom did; a rather generic looking "Sexy Alice-in-Wonderland" costume. Dustin was some kind of wizard, and of course, Randal and Taylor had the matching Spider-Man outfits.

They began trick or treating almost immediately after dinner, though they had to wait for everyone to get into their costumes. They'd visited quite a few houses in just a couple hours, and their bags were nearly full to the top with all manner of tooth-rotting sweets. Jake and Carla were sharing a single bag, while Alice's was the biggest out of everyone's. Taylor had come to the conclusion that Alice was like a big kid at heart, as she always seemed to be a bit goofy, especially around her son.

Behind her, Amy and Cameron held hands and walked close to each other, playfully bumping into each other as they walked. Cameron had his arm wrapped around Amy's lower back, and she was leaning against him with her head on his shoulder. Taylor and Randal were both watching the displays of affection.

"How can they walk like that?" Randal asked. "Seems to me like that would get in the way of, well, walking."

"I have no clue, babe," Taylor replied as they continued walking. "So what do you have so far?"

"I've got more Tootsie Rolls than anything else," Randal said as he looked into his bag. "Popcorn ball, in here somewhere."

"Want mine?" Taylor pulled a popcorn ball out of her bag and threw it in Randal's.

"Ah, for me?" Randal laughed. Taylor nodded and smiled. Randal smiled back and placed his arm around Taylor's waist, pulling her close to him as they walked together.

They soon came upon Elm Street, and Taylor could see her house as they rounded the corner.

"Race you to my porch," she said, breaking into a sprint. Randal laughed and raced behind her. Soon, everyone was running towards Taylor's house. Even Cameron was soon running towards the house; Amy started to, but held off to remove her purple heels.

"Guys, hold on! I'm in heels, you jerkwads!" It was only then that Amy noticed the street was empty, devoid of any life aside from her own group. That didn't concern her, however; it was pretty late, and most people were probably already home.

Amy jogged after her friends up to the house. The trees on the lawn seemed like they were dying, the ground littered with brown, crinkly leaves. A chill blew through the air as Amy hustled onto the sidewalk. Taylor waited until the others were inside before closing the door behind her, leaving Amy outside on the sidewalk.

"Hey, wait up!" Amy screamed. She broke into a sprint and grabbed the door handle, twisting it and flinging the door open. She stepped inside the foyer, looking into the living room for her friends.

"Thanks a lot, assholes," she said, but there was nobody sitting in the couches to hear her. "Hey, where are you guys?" There was no answer.

Amy looked at her surroundings, something eerily familiar about them. She glanced up the stairs, seeing nothing but darkness at the top. And there was this smell... A burning smell, and rotten eggs...

A door creaked open, and Amy whirled around; the door was underneath the stairs. It opened wide, and from her position, she could see a red glow coming from the open door, and there was a hiss like steam releasing from a pressure valve.

The boiler room... She suddenly realized where she was.

This wasn't Taylor's house. This was Freddy's home.

"No!" Amy screamed. "NO! Let me out of here!" Amy turned back towards the door, but it was now closed with bars going across it to keep it that way.

"No! I'm not playing along with your games, Krueger!" Amy began pounding on the glass of the window next to the door, shattering it. She sliced her arm open on a shard and tried to crawl out.

A cold metal thing touched her shoulder, and Amy began twitching and screaming; Freddy Krueger pulled her away from the window, his gloved hand on her shoulder, and his other one on her stomach. He pulled her backwards towards the basement door, and held her in front of it.

"I'm not going down there!" Amy screamed as she tried to fight him. She could feel the heat on her skin, her blood boiling as Krueger brought her closer to the fires.

"Like Hell you're not," Krueger laughed. "Don't forget; this is my world. In my world, you do as I say..."

Freddy threw Amy into the stairwell, thrashing her head against the wall, knocking her unconscious as she tumbled down the stairs. Amy regained consciousness only seconds before she reached the bottom of the stairs, where a massive lake of fire was spread out for what seemed like miles beneath her. As Amy speed towards the flames, her skin boiling with blisters, she screamed loudly, hoping somebody in the real world might be able to hear her...

...

"Hey, what's wrong with Amy?" Taylor asked. Everyone turned to look; Amy was standing in the middle of the street seemingly staring at the house. She wasn't moving, except for her apparent breathing.

"Babe, you okay?" Cameron asked. He walked towards Amy and placed a hand on her shoulder. Just as he did, Amy let out a horrifying scream, one that was a mix of fear and pain! She suddenly collapsed, almost as of her legs had been swept out from under her, and she hit her head on the pavement, immediately going into convulsions!

"Amy!" Alice screamed, dashing towards the screaming girl. "Amy, baby, stay with me, you're going to be alright!"

"Get him away from me! He's going to kill me!" Amy screamed, thrashing her arms about, fighting off Alice and Cameron.

"Who, baby?" Cameron asked.

"FREDDY!" Amy screamed at the top of her lungs. "FREDDY KRUEGER!"

Everyone suddenly went so silent, Taylor could hear their jaws hit the floor. Alice grabbed Amy's head and held it against her chest, partially in an attempt to keep her from cracking her skull open even more, but mostly to comfort the traumatized teen.

"Jake, call 911!" Alice shouted. Jake pulled out his phone and began dialing as he walked into the street, leaving Taylor, Randal, and Carla on the porch.

"Jesus Christ," Taylor breathed heavily. "I don't think I've ever seen anybody have a seizure like that before."

"God, I knew she was bad, but I had no idea..." Carla said shaking. Her breathing was shallow, erratic, and she dug into a pouch on her belt and pulled out her inhaler, taking a couple puffs from it before returning it.

Moments later, Amy was being loaded into an ambulance, the red and blue lighting up all of Elm Street. Alice stepped into the van with the paramedics while Jake and Cameron stayed behind as the van left, sirens wailing into the night. They approached the porch again, and Taylor noticed that there was blood on Jake's hands.

"Jake..." she started to say, pointing at his hands. Jake looked down and sighed heavily. "Bathroom?"

"Upstairs, middle door." Jake thanked her as she opened the door. Cameron stepped inside as well, though Dustin and Randal remained outside.

"I, uh, I think Dustin and I are just gonna go chill out at my house tonight," he said. "I'll talk to you later, okay, babe?"

Taylor nodded, her whole body shaking. Randal leaned in and put his arms around Taylor, who suddenly felt like she was no longer scared, or at least shaking. Randal placed a quick kiss on her forehead, but she pulled him back just as he turned to leave and placed a bigger one on his lips.

"I love you," she said softly.

"I love you," he said back. He reluctantly pulled himself away and walked with his cousin across the street. When they had entered the house, Taylor spoke again.

"What the hell just happened?" Taylor asked. "She was fine one minute, and then this...?"

"I had no idea she was that bad. It's like she just had a full mental breakdown right in front of us." Carla sat down on the porch and tried not to break into tears.

"She mentioned Freddy," Taylor whispered. "Wasn't Freddy Krueger the guy you were talking to Jake about a couple months ago?"

Carla perked up at the mention of the name. "I thought you said you didn't hear that conversation!"

"I caught the tail end of it," Taylor admitted. "Something about a man named Freddy Krueger, and something else about his house. You guys were quiet, I didn't hear anything else, I swear."

Carla looked like she was about to blow a gasket? "What else have you heard about Freddy Krueger?" she asked sharply.

"Nothing," Taylor admitted. "Just what I heard from your conversation with Jake. I don't get it; is Freddy Krueger someone bad?"

"No, he wasn't bad," Carla said, finally having calmed herself down. She was still shaking her head, however. "He was a fucking monster..." she finally breathed, her voice cracking as she spoke.

Taylor could feel herself shaking, but didn't want to say anything else; she feared she had overstepped herself.

"Taylor, I'm going to tell you something, and you have to promise me, promise me on the grave of your parents, that you will keep this a secret," Carla whispered. Taylor nodded eagerly, but Carla continued. "I'm not joking, Taylor. What I'm about to tell you, you can't tell anybody! It involves something that happened to me and Jake when we were very young, and it's something that followed us around for years. And it's something that's gotten people that we know and love hurt, like Amy. And, in some cases, it's gotten them killed."

Taylor's mouth hung open, but she nodded eagerly.

"A long time ago, there as a man named Fred Krueger. He was a child molester and a murderer, and he wound up killing dozens of children in the neighborhood. And after years of these missing children cases, Freddy finally came after me and Jake. He followed us around for a long time, trying to kill us every chance he got. And he got real close a time or two." Carla pulled down the neck of her costume until the upper portion of her right breast was visible, covered in four long, ugly scars that ran across her collarbone from her shoulder down into her cleavage. She did the same with her left one, revealing four mirroring scars there.

"Jesus..." Taylor said as realization suddenly dawned on her. "Is that how Jake got the...?" Taylor motioned to her face and hand, indicating the scars Jake had.

"Yes, it is," Carla said.

"Oh God," Taylor breathed. "And Amy? There was no Rottweiler, was there?"

Carla chuckled nervously. "Is that the story they went with?"

"What happened to him?"

Carla hung her head low. "He disappeared for a long time, but then he came back, killed a couple more of our friends before Jake and I finally realized that we had to put a stop to him. So we tracked him down, us and a few others, to this factory on the outskirts of town where he used to take his victims. We cornered him there, but he refused to go down easily."

"I don't get it. Why not go to the police? You knew who this guy was, so how come the police didn't stop him?"

"Truthfully, at the time, we didn't trust the police. We didn't trust the adults, except for a few who knew what Krueger was capable of."

"God, that's just surreal," Taylor exclaimed. "How did you finally..." Taylor started to ask, but the words became lost in her throat. Fortunately, Carla understood.

"There was this girl that we were all close friends with named Alexis. When we went after Freddy, managed to corner me and Jake. I passed out, and when I came to, Alexis and Freddy were both dead. Freddy killed her, but she killed him right back."

Carla began to choke on her words, fighting back the tears welling up in her eyes. "She saved everyone's lives that night. Mine, Jake's, Cameron's, even Dustin and Randal's lives. If she hadn't stepped in..." A sob escaped Carla as she tried to form words. "If she hadn't stepped in, Freddy would have killed us all."

"Holy shit," Taylor exclaimed. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think... Jesus!"

"It's alright," Carla said calmly. "You needed to know; I'm not sure why Jake is keeping it a secret from you, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Freddy is dead, and that's all there is to it."

Proceed to next chapter...


	16. Daydreams

CHAPTER 13

DAYDREAMS

Jake looked down at the sink, watching Amy's blood wash down the drain, contemplating. Nothing made sense to him right now. He'd heard clear as day what Amy had screamed, everyone heard it.

It shouldn't have happened. He'd destroyed Krueger's earthly remains. He had salted them, and then burned them. That was how you did it. The salt purified the remains, and then the fire burnt it until there was nothing left but ashes. How could that not have worked?

Jake shook his head clear, and dried his hands on the towel. He stepped outside the bathroom and saw Cameron sitting on the top step. His head was tucked between his arms, hands cupped at the base of his neck, rubbing it nervously.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked when he heard Jake exit the bathroom. Jake looked down at Cameron and merely shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "I really don't. I thought I'd finished it."

Cameron looked up, suddenly confused. "We finished it. Alexis finished it. And then we stuffed his corpse in the furnace and left it there!" Cameron's voice was now a hushed yell, and he stood up eye level with Jake. He could tell that Jake had something he wanted to say, but he wasn't saying it. "And we haven't been back since, right?" Cameron squared up against Jake, daring his friend to disagree with him. "Right?"

With a heavy sigh, Jake finally admitted the truth. "No, not right," Jake finally said. "I went back to the boil-"

Cameron didn't bother waiting for Jake to finish his sentence before grabbing him by the shirt collar and shoving him against the wall. "What did you do?"

Jake looked directly into Cameron's eyes, which were full of anger and staring daggers back at Jake. Jake swallowed before saying, "I went back, and I salted and burned it, just like you said we should do."

"When you say, 'it,' do you mean the corpse we stuffed in the boiler?" Cameron asked slowly.

Jake nodded. Without warning, Cameron brought his fist up, fast as lightning, and clocked Jake squarely in the nose; there was a loud crack and Jake's lower face was suddenly dripping with blood. Jake slid to the floor clutching his nose.

"Why the fuck did you do that?" Cameron asked as Jake wiped the blood from his lips.

"Because you said, and I quote, that salting and burning the corpse can help a restless spirit cross over."

"Yes, I did, but you can't just cover a corpse with table salt and then torch it! There's a procedure you have to follow! You need everything that was a part of that person when they died! That means we need the glove, his hat, his sweater, anything he had when he died. And they have to be the original remains, which we don't have any of!"

"Fuck you," Jake spat.

"No, fuck you," Cameron grabbed Jake and lifted him up and pinned him against the wall, arm against his throat. "Did you not think that going back there at all might have stirred him up? If Amy dies tonight, that's on _your_ head, Jacob-Daniel!"

Jake struggled against Cameron's arm, and choked as he spoke again. "I fucked up, I know that now. But I'm going to make it right, and I can't do that with your arm on my windpipe!" Cameron shot Jake one more death glare before dropping his arm and backing away. Jake coughed and sputtered as he regained his breath.

"Amy is not going to die," Jake hoarsely continued. "She's a strong girl, and she's going to make it!"

Cameron nodded in agreement. "What about Freddy?" he asked.

"We're going to take care of him. We've done it before, and we can do it again. But the only way we can do that is if we all keep our heads out of our asses from here on out. Okay?" Cameron nodded in agreement and turned to walk down the stairs.

"Hey," Jake called after him. When Cameron turned back, Jake added, "If I did fuck this up, I'll take full responsibility."

Cameron nodded. "You might want to clean yourself up," he said, and he turned to descend the steps, leaving the bloodied Jake to clean himself up.

When Jake stepped out onto the porch a few minutes later, Randal and Dustin were gone and it was just Cameron, Carla, and Taylor standing on the sidewalk, talking amongst themselves. Carla turned and her jaw dropped when she saw Jake's lip, which was now swollen with droplets of blood slowly forming around the edges.

"Jesus, Cam really clocked you!" Carla gasped.

"I deserved it," he said. _Understatement of the year,_ he thought. "Come on, let's go home."

"Yeah," Taylor said. "I'm getting cold, and these stockings-thin leggings aren't helping."

"Alright then, take care of yourself, Taylor," Carla said.

"I will," Taylor said. She hugged Carla and went inside the house. Carla waited until Taylor had closed the door before turning back to Jake and Cameron.

"What the hell happened in there?" she demanded. "Did you two go at it again?" She slapped both boys upside the head, landing a pretty hard one on Jake in particular. "I've had it up to here-" She raised her arm well over her head to indicate precisely where "here" was. "-with you two fighting!" Carla started walking down the street as the two boys chased after her.

"Carla, it was my fault," Jake confessed. "I told him what I did. I told him about Freddy's bones."

Cameron glared at Carla now, too. "You knew?"

"Of course I did," she said indignantly. "Did you think I'd let him go alone? Like hell I would! I also told Taylor the truth, too!"

"You what?" Cameron looked like he was about to burst, but he had to forcibly keep his voice down. "Why?"

"I'm done keeping secrets," Carla shook her head. "Look where it got Amy. And look where Taylor lives! She's in his fucking house! She's right at the goddamned center of this mess, and she doesn't even fucking realize it!

"So, yes, Cameron, I told her the truth. Not all of it, mind you; just enough that she won't go snooping around and sticking herself into someplace where she'll get herself killed."

"And you're not worried she'll be afraid of him?" Cameron asked.

"No, I'm not. Want to know why?" When Cameron failed to answer, she did so for him. "Because Freddy Krueger is dead. D-e-a-d, dead! And I told her so!"

"What did you tell her?" Jake asked.

"Everything. About the children he killed, about him coming after us. About Alexis... The only thing I didn't mention was the nightmares. I figured if I did, that was almost a guarantee that she would start having them."

"Good," Jake nodded. Cameron was now in total disbelief.

"I cannot believe what I'm hearing!" Cameron turned to Jake. "Do you think this is a good idea? What if Taylor starts having nightmares now? Are you going to accept responsibility for her death, too?"

"Cameron, shut the fuck up!" Jake yelled. Cameron complied. "Carla's right. No more secrets. No more sneaking around behind each other's backs. It was my keeping a secret that put Amy back in the hospital, and I'm not making that mistake again."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Cameron muttered as he walked off. As he walked down the street, he was overcome by a brief fit of age and chucked the candy bag high into the air, sending the contents flying and scattering to the asphalt as he emitted a scream of anguish.

Carla and Jake stood in the street and watched Cameron walk away, then Carla turned to Jake.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked meekly.

"No," was Jake's simple reply. "You did the right thing. You're the only one so far who has." Jake planted a kiss on Carla's forehead, bringing a smile to her face.

"Come on, lover-boy," Carla said. "Let's go find Cameron and get over to the hospital. Maybe your mom can give us an update on Amy."

...

Alice followed the paramedics through the Emergency Room doors. Amy was lying still on the gurney, covered in blood and struggling to breathe.

"Amy, stay awake, baby!" Alice called to her.

"Don't... don't let them put me to sleep," Amy cried weakly. "Don't let me..."

Alice caught up with the gurney and gripped Amy's hand, which was covered with blood.

"Ma'am, I need you to stay out here," one of the medics said.

"But that's my daughter!" Alice screamed.

"She's in good hands, Alice," someone said. However, this voice did not come from a doctor, or a nurse. Alice watched as the doctors wheeled Amy down the hall and around a corner.

"She's going to be fine," the voice continued. Alice turned around; the waiting room was empty, save for the receptionist at the check-in counter, and a single man in his mid-forties sitting in a chair, watching some talk-show.

Alice walked to the receptionist desk and picked up a medical sheet and a clipboard before sitting down to fill out the paperwork. The show was Dick Cavett, an old talk-show host from the eighties, talking with someone who appeared to be Zsa Zsa Gabor. The man was suddenly sitting next to her, staring at Alice for a while and making her rather uncomfortable, until she was finally forced to address him.

"What is it, Rick?" she said, sounding rather frustrated as she slammed the pen down on the clipboard.

"I told you, Amy is going to be fine," Rick replied. "Didn't you hear me say it before?"

"I was trying to ignore you," Alice shot back angrily. "You're not really here, remember?"

"True, I'm not really here," Rick conceded. "I'm here..." Rick took a fingertip and tapped it on the top of Alice's head, much to her annoyance. "...in your head." Rick finished.

"I hate it when you do that," Alice looked down at the form in front of her, trying to distract herself.

"You didn't say that when I was alive," Rick picked up a newspaper from the table in front of him. Alice almost didn't look, but a sidebar headline caught her eye: 15TH TEEN SUICIDE IN SPRINGWOOD. Beneath it was a school photo of Rick.

"Rick, put down that goddamn paper!"

"What, you don't like my picture?" Rick gestured to the article on the front. "I thought I looked pretty snazzy-"

Alice grabbed the paper from Rick's hands, wadding it up and standing up to hurl it across the waiting room. "I'm already forced to look at that paper every day!" she screamed as she turned back to Rick. "I don't want to ever see it more than I have to!"

Rick seemed visibly taken aback by Alice's reaction. "Touchy!" He exclaimed. "What bug crawled up your ass and died?"

"Fuck you, Rick! You don't know what I've gone through! Twenty-five years, I've been dealing with this... this... Fuck! Fuck you!" She grabbed the table in the middle of the room and flipped it over, sending the magazines and newspapers flying into the air. Immediately Alice broke down and began sobbing, tears streaking down her face. Rick stood and walked over to hug Alice. She buried her face into his shoulder and started crying heavily.

"I can't do this, Rick," Alice sobbed into Rick's shoulder. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I thought I'd put a stop to it years ago, but he just keeps coming back, and I'm afraid that he'll never stop..."

Rick cradled Alice in his arms as she continued to cry. "When I got shuffled off this mortal coil," Rick began, "I remembered you as this meek, timid, mousy little girl with strawberry blonde hair." Rick pinched a lock of Alice's hair and held it in front of her, showing off her old hair color from her teen years. She let out a small giggle from behind her tears as Rick continued.

"And after I was gone, I looked down at you every day watching you grow up. Now I see the beautiful, strong woman that you've grown up to be, raising my nephew to be a strong and intelligent man. You've both fought off Freddy time and time again because you're both strong. And Alice," Rick said, placing his hands on her cheeks to pull her full attention. "I need you to stay that way. For your son, and his friends. Alice, you can't give up on him."

"Or us," came another voice from behind them. Alice turned, and her heart skipped a beat. Daniel Jordan was standing next to her, towering over her like he did all those years ago. He took her hand and gripped it tightly, smiling down on her.

"Dan..." she started to say, tracing her hand across his chiseled cheeks and chin. It was then that she noticed the others were standing with him. Kristen, Kincaid, Joey, Sheila, Debbie, Greta, and Mark were all there, as well; none of them had aged a single day.

Kristen stepped forward to speak.

"Alice," she said, though the voice was not hers. Alice looked on in confusion as she heard her name again. "Alice. Alice...

"Alice!"

Alice was startled back to reality by the sound of Carla's voice. She was standing over the chair Alice sat in, Jake standing on the other side of the table, which was not overturned and covered with scattered magazines.

"Mom, you alright?" Jake asked. His lower lip was swollen, and appeared to be busted a little. There were flecks of dried blood on his nose, as well.

"Yeah, I'm just fine," Alice said, straightening herself up. "Are you? How bad is the other guy?"

Jake and Carla both laughed. "Amy's just fine," Carla said. "She's stable, and they think it was just a panic attack. Cameron is up there with her now."

"We can hope we're so lucky," Alice said. She looked back at Rick; or rather, where Rick had been sitting. She hadn't had a daydream like that in years, and the fact that that was all it was tore at her heart a bit. Rick was gone. Dan was gone. They were all gone.

All that was left was Jake. And she was about to make goddamned sure she didn't lose him to this maniac, too.

Proceed to next chapter...


	17. Nightmares

_Hello again, loyal readers! Just a quick update before the latest chapter. Things have been pretty hectic on this end, but I'm striving to stay on schedule to deliver new chapters every two weeks, and I seem to be on track to finish around Christmas. But before then, I'll have a couple more projects out that I'm excited to announce today! On October 1st, I will begin publication of a new "Final Destination" novel. Those details will be found on my profile page, along with other planned projects. Also, and I hope this doesn't give away any spoilers, I am currently working on not one, but TWO follow-ups to "Children of Elm Street." One will be a straight sequel, of which I am currently keeping details under wraps (for obvious reasons), but the other will be a prequel to the original Nightmare on Elm Street! Set in the mid-Sixties, the prequel will follow not only Krueger during his early murder spree, but also the exploits of Vietnam war vet Donald Thompson as he seeks to bring the Springwood Slasher to justice! Late 2017 is the target for that one, so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, don't fall asleep!_

* * *

CHAPTER 14

NIGHTMARES

Randal sat silently in his chair, spinning himself around as Dustin texted away furiously on his phone. Who he was texting, Randal didn't know nor care to know. His thoughts were elsewhere, such as Taylor. She seemed visibly shaken by what happened to Amy, almost as much as Cameron had been. Randal balled up the Spider-Man mask in his hands and gripped it tightly, squeezing it like a stress ball. It didn't make him feel any better.

He was staring out the window at Taylor, who was sitting on the porch with Carla. They were talking about something, but Randal couldn't hear them. Eventually, Cameron and Jake exited the house and Taylor went inside not long after. The trio hung outside for a moment before walking off, presumably back to Jake's house.

"It doesn't make any fucking sense," Randal said to himself. "All this time, why now?"

"Do what?" Dustin asked, looking up from his phone.

"Oh, just thinking out loud. Got this really nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach."

"You're worried about Amy?"

"And Taylor, too," Randal added. "Don't forget; that's _his_ house she's living in. She's right at the goddamn center of this cluster-fuck, and she doesn't even have a fucking clue."

"Are you thinking she's going to start having nightmares?" Dustin asked. "She's been there for three months now, and nothing yet."

"I'm still worried about her." Across the street, the light in Taylor's room went off. "I feel like it's my job to make sure she's safe."

"That's usually the responsibility of the boyfriend," Dustin mocked. Randal shot him an annoyed look, but Dustin continued. "If you're so concerned, just go over there. Climb up to her window _Rapunzel_-style and make like Romeo and Juliet!"

"Oh, great idea!" It was Randal's turn to be mocking. "Yeah, let's be two selfish teenagers whose unending love for each other resulted in the deaths of nearly half-a-dozen people! Great idea, jackass!" Dustin rolled his eyes at his cousin and shook his head.

"Not what I meant, and you know it, goon," he said sharply. "Call her, like, right now."

"I will in a minute," Randal replied. "What the hell happened? How the hell did Freddy get Amy like that?"

"She was the most susceptible out of all of us, the easiest one to get to," Dustin answered. "The hallucinations, all of it, made her an easy target."

"Then he should have killed her right then," Randal argued. "He's either not strong enough yet, or more likely, he's fucking with us."

"That wouldn't surprise me," Dustin said. "That's what I'd do; draw it out, make it last."

"And if he's back for real, then Taylor might be in danger, too," Randal said, mostly to himself. "Throw me my phone."

...

"Alright then, take care of yourself, Taylor," Carla said.

"I will," Taylor said. She hugged Carla and went inside the house. She closed the door, prepared to walk away but she hesitated, and turned back to the door to lock it. She immediately felt her stomach rumbling, realizing she hadn't eaten anything in hours. Of course, she had her candy, but she wanted something more substantial. Like a hotdog. Or taco. Or... something not chocolaty.

Minutes later, she was sitting on her bed with a plate full of cold pizza, stripped of her costume, which was lying in a pile on the floor next to the bed. Her phone was hooked up to a Bluetooth speaker and belting out the new Taylor Swift album, which was currently playing through a tune called "Blank Space." She wasn't one for pop music, but Taylor had an affinity for the musician and found the new pop sound a rather refreshing departure for the singer.

The music suddenly cut off, and was replaced by the sound of the ringtone she had made for Randal.

"_Still there's days and nights... I'll wait for you..._

_Because deep inside this flame... I know it's true..._

_Forever starts today... Forever we will be..._

_Forever's every day... Forever faithfully..."_

Taylor quickly snatched the phone from the table and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hey," came Randal's voice from the other end of the line. "Just checking to see how you're holding up?" Taylor smiled and walked over to the window. She could see Randal standing in the window pane of his bedroom on the opposite side of the street.

"I'm doing fine, babe," Taylor said. "Thanks for worrying about me."

"What kind of boyfriend would I be if I wasn't, after what happened tonight?"

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. That name she kept screaming, Freddy Krueger... It made me pretty uneasy."

"How so?" Randal sounded pretty shaken himself.

"Carla told me who he was," Taylor said.

"And what did Carla tell you?"

"Just that he was some filthy kiddie rapist and murderer who went after you guys when you were younger. She didn't elaborate further, and I honestly didn't want her to."

"Yeah, he was a monster," Randal added, his voice less shaky now. "I'm glad he's dead, but some of us are still paying for it. Like Amy, and Jake."

"God, I hope she's alright," Taylor said. "She had quite an episode."

"I'm sure she'll be alright," Randal reassured her. "I was just calling to check that you were alright, too."

"I appreciate it, baby," Taylor said. "I'm going to go to bed, so I'll talk to you in the morning."

"Alright, good night. I love you."

"I love you, too," Taylor hung up the phone and watched Randal leave his window on the other side of the street. When he was gone, Taylor returned to her own bed and collapsed next to the plate of cold pizza. She considered another slice, but was asleep before she could move her hand.

A crash from downstairs woke her up. It was dark in her room, and she was momentarily panicked as she remembered leaving the lights on but then realized that Aunt Kelly or Uncle Mike had probably shut them off at some point.

"Uncle Mike?" she called out. She could under her door that there was a light in the hallway. She got out of bed and opened the door; the hall light was on, but downstairs was totally dark. "Aunt Kelly? Carson?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

Taylor jumped clear out of her skin when Carson suddenly appeared right beside her. "Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed.

"It worked on me, but I don't think he's coming back for a while. Still pretty bitter over what happened last time."

"Oh shut it!" Taylor remarked. "Do you know if there's someone downstairs?"

"I don't think there is," Carson answered. "Kari left hours ago."

"Kari was here?" Taylor gave Carson a questioning look.

"Of course, we went trick-or-treating together."

"Uh-huh..." Taylor started down the steps. "Well come on; I need a big, strong man to protect me from the monsters."

"Don't mock me," Carson said as he followed. The pair got to the bottom of the stairs and Taylor looked around the living room. She flipped on the light switch, but saw nothing.

"Uncle Mike, Aunt Kelly?" There was no response from either of them, and Taylor could feel the bottom of her stomach slowly starting to give out. "Carson, I've got a bad feeling about this," Taylor said as she backed out of the living room. She bumped against the wall and an ice cold sensation passed through her body as she suddenly felt hair-raising chills running up and down her flesh. She quickly realized she was falling backwards, though to where and how she could not comprehend; she should have hit the wall, but she had apparently passed through it.

Before she could attempt to understand what had happened, she hit the ground with a hard thump, and pain shot through her entire body.

"Oh, fucking Christ!" she screamed in agony. "What the fuck...?" She attempted to sit up, but a sharp pain prevented her from moving too quickly. She rolled over onto her stomach, and looked around, realizing she was in the basement of the house.

She slowly, painfully, clambered to her feet, looking around the dark and damp basement. She used a large stone support column as a crutch while she steadied herself.

The basement was quite warm and it took a moment to figure out why: an old-fashioned wood furnace in the corner was burning furiously, flames leaping through the iron grate on the door.

"What the hell...?" Taylor grabbed a hockey stick out of a pile of random crap and used it to help herself hobble closer to the furnace. She wasn't aware of this furnace the previous time she was down here. In fact, she was almost positive that it hadn't there before at all.

Suddenly, there was a loud screech that reminded Taylor of metal on a chalkboard and the flames vanished from the furnace. The door opened, and Taylor saw inside a dirty, dissolving rag swaddling some kind of object. Four long talons stuck out one end, and Taylor felt her heart rate go through the roof. Something wasn't right, and she needed to get the hell out!

Taylor turned to the stairs, but found her way blocked by a man in a dirty red and green striped Christmas sweater and an old, blackened fedora hat. His face and hands were burnt so horribly that the skin was curled and flaky in spots and the muscles beneath rippled and throbbed freely.

His breath was foul with the stench of death, and his smile revealed a set of pointed teeth stained red from what Taylor believed to be blood.

"Boo!" the man screamed!

Taylor stumbled backwards and fell to the ground in front of the furnace, which suddenly roared back to life, flames leaping from the open door seemingly trying to grab Taylor as she lay helpless on the stone floor. The man stepped over her and knelt down besides her.

"One, two, I'm coming for you..." he sang in a tone that reminded Taylor of the nursery rhyme "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe."

"Three, four, better lock your doors..." The man reached into the furnace, much to Taylor's horror, with his face in a sadistic grin; the flames licked his skin like a puppy licks its master when it comes home.

"Five, six, grab your crucifix..." Taylor was afraid to move as the man pulled the rag out of the furnace, burnt and blackened with ash. The man pulled the rag off and revealed a rusty, corroded metal gauntlet with four long blades coming off of each finger, except the thumb. The man put the glove on his right hand.

"Seven, eight, try and stay awake..." The man looked back at Taylor and held the index blade against her cheek, gently pulling it along so as not so cut her... yet.

"Nine, ten, Freddy's back again..." The man pulled himself close to Taylor's face. He took his left hand, riddled with open wounds and burns, and dragged it up Taylor's leg towards her thick thighs. She whimpered as the man held her immobile, forcing his hand up against her soft flesh.

"No, stop it..." She pleaded as the man breathed into her face.

"In case that wasn't clear enough for you, I'm Freddy! And you... are about to die!"

Freddy raised the bladed glove high into the air and began laughing maniacally! Taylor screamed loudly, as loud as she ever had before, but that didn't stop the blades from coming down swiftly towards her belly.

Taylor closed her eyes and she suddenly felt herself falling once again. The bottom of her stomach dropped away as she fell, and she suddenly felt herself land on something with a lot of spring and give.

Her bed! She was back on her bed, and she sat up so fast that her head started spinning. Taylor checked her cheeks; no metal razor claws. She was still alone, her bedroom as cold as a slaughterhouse freezer. No burning furnace, no man in a Christmas sweater. She was safe.

She didn't feel safe at all, however. That man... It all felt so real, and even now things felt... off. Tears welled up in her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, Taylor was afraid. Of what, she couldn't put her finger on.

She grabbed her phone off the counter and dialed Randal's number. It rang two or three times, and she was anxious that he wouldn't pick up. On the forth ring, the line clicked and Randal's sweet voice answered.

"Hey, baby," Randal said, his voice sleepy and exhausted. "What's up?"

"I, uh..." Taylor wasn't sure what words to use. Her voice cracked as she spoke, and she stammered for a minute.

"Tay, are you alright?" Randal asked, suddenly concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I had a nightmare," Taylor finally admitted. "Can you..." She was hesitant to ask, but she found her courage. "Can you come over, stay with me?" She choked on those words as tears streaked down her face.

"Yeah, I'll be over immediately," Randal said, quickly hanging up before Taylor could say another word. She breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back onto the bed.

Taylor wasn't certain how long it was before she heard the window open. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard Randal's voice.

"Taylor, you asleep?"

"No," she responded weakly. She heard Randal clamber through the window off the trellis at the front of the house and close the window behind him. Taylor barely turned her body in Randal's direction and reached out for him. He took her hand and lay down on the bed next to her.

"Hold me," she told him. And he did; he held her tightly against him as Taylor cried softly until they were both long asleep.

_Proceed to next chapter_


	18. Not a Dream

_Here it is, another new chapter in the tale of the Children of Elm Street. If you've enjoyed the story so far, you should favorite and follow it to get all the chapter updates the moment they appear and not a second later; the best is coming very soon! Don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 15

NOT A DREAM

Taylor was reluctant to open her eyes the next morning. Doing so would mean she would be required to be productive on a Saturday. However, she forced herself to do so and the first thing she saw was Randal's body curled up against her's, arm draped across her back and sleeping like a rock.

A smile crept across Taylor's face when she noticed Randal's mouth slacked open, drool dripping from the corners. She took her thumb and wiped it away, startling Randal out of his sleep as she did so. He shook himself awake with a start and it took him a moment to remember where he was.

"Morning, sunshine," Taylor cooed softly.

"Morning," Randal replied stupidly, still not fully cognitive; he placed his hand underneath his head and was quickly falling back asleep. Taylor smirked and playfully slapped Randal's cheek a couple times to bring him back around.

"Uh, I'm up, I'm up," he said as Taylor leaned in to kiss him on the lips. "I'm definitely up now," he smiled.

"Thank you," Taylor said softly. "You didn't have to come over, you know?"

"Yes, I did," Randal argued. He was about to say something else, but a loud rumbling noise cut him off, and his facial expression suddenly dropped.

"I'm hungry," he finally said.

"Of course you are," Taylor laughed. She sat up and pulled off the shirt she was wearing, tossing it into the corner. Before she could stand up to get another shirt from her closet, Randal sat up behind her and threw his arms around her belly, leaning in and planting a series of kisses along her backside. Taylor closed her eyes and felt a warmness seep through her body as Randal held her. She leaned back against him and let her whole body relax, something she hadn't felt in God-knew-how-long.

"Kind of makes me forget about all the chaos last night," Taylor remarked. "Amy, the nightmare-"

"Nightmare?" Randal perked up at the word, suddenly remembering why Taylor had called him over last night. "You said you had one last night. What was it about?"

Taylor wiggled from Randal's embrace and turned around on the bed to face him. "It was really weird. My cousin and I went downstairs because we couldn't find my aunt and uncle. So while we were searching downstairs, I fell through a wall and landed in the basement. And there was a furnace of some kind, and there was this man who just came out of nowhere and started chanting this nursery rhyme of sorts; a really creepy one, too. Went something like: _one, two..._"

"_One, two, I'm coming for you..._"

"Yeah, that's what it was," Taylor exclaimed. She suddenly noticed Randal's face was now drained of all color and his face hung open in what she assumed was fear or shock. "Baby, you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, clearly lying. "It's just, that song brings up a lot of bad memories."

"Did Freddy come after you, too?" Taylor asked. Randal shot her a glare, and she suddenly realized she had made a mistake. "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have... Carla told me last night, about what happened when you were all little. I'm sorry, I didn't-"

Randal smiled and placed his hands on Taylor's arms to calm her down, and he smiled widely at her. "Don't worry your pretty head over it. It happened a long time ago. And he's dead and gone now, and he's not coming back. As for last night, your nightmare, well that's all it was: just a bad dream. This monster, him and his razor claws, they're not real. Besides, as long as you're with me, you're safe." Randal punctuated his monologue by leaning in and planting a deep kiss on Taylor's lips.

"I love you," Taylor said.

"I love you too."

Taylor smiled brightly at Randal and, after a long pause, said, "Come on, lover boy, let's go get some food," she said, attempting to stand up, but Randal had her in a death grip.

"No, make food come to us; we stay here!" Randal laughed as he pulled Taylor back onto the bed on top of him. Taylor laughed, too, as she tried to roll off of Randal and off the bed.

"Randal, let me go!" She threw an elbow behind her and down, connecting with Randal's manhood. Momentarily distracted, Randal loosened his grip on Taylor, who gave a mighty lunge and tumbled off the bed, Randal right behind her, landing next to her on the floor with a THUD!

"Oh, Jesus," he moaned, cradling his junk. "That hurt..."

"Serves you right, dork," Taylor mocked. She stood and walked over to the closet, pulling out a t-shirt with Black Widow on the front, and throwing it on over her curvy frame. She stepped out the door, but cast a look back at the crumpled heap on the floor. "Food's downstairs when you salvage enough dignity to stand."

"Fuck you," Randal moaned with a smile.

"Ooh, a little too early for that," Taylor mocked as she left the room. "Maybe later..."

Taylor was all smiles as she closed the door. Not paying attention to anything other than her own self, she turned around and plowed right into Carson, who seemed just as surprised as she did.

"Morning, midget," Taylor said as she started to pass him. Carson, however, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, looking at her with wide eyes and stammering unintelligently before finally finding words.

"What... You... You're... Wh-where the hell did you go last night?" He asked quickly.

"You know where I was. I was out trick-or-treating with everyone."

"No, no, no, after you came home!" Carson screamed. "You said you heard something downstairs, and we both went down to see what it was, remember? And then when I got down there, you disappeared!"

"What? Gone...?" Taylor suddenly felt her heart skip a beat or two and the bottom of her stomach give way; she was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of nausea and felt herself start shaking as she backed against her bedroom door. "But it was just a dream... wasn't it?"

"No, it wasn't a dream. You fucking vanished! I saw you fall backwards through the wall! Then I heard a crash in the basement, but the door was locked and I couldn't get down there."

Taylor suddenly remembered that moment in the basement with that monster...

_''...nine, ten, Freddy's back again...'' The man pulled himself close to Taylor's face. He took his left hand, riddled with open wounds and burns, and dragged it up Taylor's leg towards her thick thighs. She whimpered as the man held her immobile, forcing his hand up against her soft flesh._

_''No, stop it...'' She pleaded as the man breathed into her face...and raised the bladed glove high into the air and began laughing maniacally! Taylor screamed loudly, as loud as she ever had before, but that didn't stop the blades from coming down swiftly towards her belly..._

...Taylor instinctively put a hand on her stomach, remembering the monster from her "dream." The door she had been leaning against suddenly opened up and Taylor began falling backwards. She screamed loudly, and struggled wildly when she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders.

"No, get off me!" she yelled as she turned to face her attacker. Randal seemed just as shocked as she was.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked calmly as he held Taylor's arms. "Did I scare you?"

"No, I..." Taylor hesitated. Should she tell him what happened? Would he just brush her off as a silly girl with a wild imagination? "No, you didn't scare me," she lied. "Go downstairs and find something to eat, I'll be down in a minute."

"I'm actually gonna pop out of here. Jake text me and wants me to meet him at the hospital. I guess they're letting Amy go this morning."

"Okay," Taylor said, sounding mildly disappointed. "Well I'd go with, but I'm fracking starving, so, I'm gonna go gorge myself on a stack of cinnamon pancakes," Taylor said as they walked downstairs.

Taylor kissed Randal quickly and he was soon out the front door. Taylor closed the door behind him and headed into the downstairs bathroom to take a moment to wash herself. As she was rinsing her face, something clicked inside her mind.

_''A long time ago, there was a man named Fred Krueger. He was a child molester and a murderer, and he wound up killing dozens of children in the neighborhood...he disappeared for a long time, but then he came back_..._''_

Taylor suddenly felt like she was about to puke. It couldn't be... was it?

_''Nine, ten, Freddy's back again...'' The man pulled himself close to Taylor's face. He took his left hand, riddled with open wounds and burns, and dragged it up Taylor's leg towards her thick thighs. She whimpered as the man held her immobile, forcing his hand up against her soft flesh..._

_''No, stop it...'' She pleaded as the man breathed into her face._

_''In case that wasn't clear enough for you, I'm Freddy! And you... are about to die!''_

_He raised the bladed glove high into the air and began laughing maniacally! Taylor screamed loudly, as loud as she ever had before, but that didn't stop the blades from coming down swiftly towards her belly..._

Fear filled Taylor's gut and she could feel it inching its way up her body. However, she quickly realized that it wasn't just fear that was coming up. She fell to her knees and purged the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.

Proceed to next chapter...


	19. The Chicken Exit

_Here it is, another new chapter in the tale of the Children of Elm Street. If you've enjoyed the story so far, you should favorite and follow it to get all the chapter updates the moment they appear and not a second later! And also, keep a look out for more stories coming this October, including a new Final Destination story and a short story based on the horror hit The Purge. In the meantime, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 16

THE CHICKEN EXIT

December 19th, 2014

The winter weather didn't creep into Springwood so much as it came in like a wrecking ball, demolishing the warm autumn weather with temperatures below freezing. The first week of December was the worst, as the clock hadn't even struck midnight on the first day of the month before the ground was covered in three inches of snow.

Taylor was used to the cold weather, but she still wasn't too terribly huge a fan of snow. Normally, she would have preferred to bury herself into her thick, comfy blankets and sleep the day away. Unfortunately for her, it was Monday, and school hadn't been cancelled.

"I fucking hate the snow," Taylor mumbled as she closed the front door of the house behind her. She wore a heavy overcoat and a wool beanie cap, from which her long blonde hair flowed over her shoulders. Carson was already on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus to come, and she noticed Randal was slowly coming across the street. Snow trucks had already cleared the street and salted the road, but it was still fairly slick. Taylor carefully stepped off the porch and cautiously made her way to the sidewalk.

"Good morning, baby girl." Randal said as he grabbed Taylor's hand and leaned in to kiss her. Their lips met briefly, only to be interrupted by an audible sound of disgust from Carson.

"Gross," he muttered. Nearby, there was the hissing of a school bus' airbrakes. "I guess there's no chance of cancelling classes at the last minute?"

"Sorry, Charlie, but they'd have posted any closings by seven o'clock, before the busses rolled out. And it sounds like your bus is coming up now," Randal nodded down the street where a yellow bus was, sure enough, turning onto Elm Street.

"I guess I'll see you after school," Carson said as the bus stopped in front of them. The doors opened and Carson stepped on.

"What a dork," Taylor said as the bus drove away. "Now where were we?" she asked as she turned back to Randal to resume their previously interrupted make out session.

Taylor's relationship with Randal was progressing rather nicely, all things considered. The Halloween incident had left Taylor rather shaken for several days, and she had gotten into a habit of avoiding everyone when she could. She hadn't had a nightmare like that before Carla told her about Freddy Krueger, and Taylor was convinced that the man from her nightmare was, in fact, the same one that Carla had told her about, and was also part of the hallucination that landed Amy a night in the hospital. She wasn't sure how it was connected, and frankly she wasn't in any great rush to find out.

Taylor even went so far as to avoid Randal for several days, as she also realized that Randal had known about the razor claws even though Taylor hadn't mentioned them at all. After nearly a week, a week in which Taylor had no further nightmares, she finally began speaking to Randal again, dismissing the nightmare as nothing more than that and brushing off her behavior over the last week as "PMS-ing."

"Your lips are cold," Randal said when they finally stopped kissing.

"Well then warm them up, jackass," Taylor mocked.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. The sound of snow crunching underneath a vehicle came from behind them, and the pair turned to see Cameron's Explorer slide to a halt by the curb.

"Get in! It's balls cold!" Cameron screamed from the driver's seat. Taylor quickly opened the door and pushed Randal inside the car, closing it as she got in herself. Dustin sat in the front seat as Cameron pulled away from the curb.

Taylor was the first to notice the fact that Dustin was sitting in the seat usually reserved for Amy. Cameron had a pair very strict set of rules for his car: driver controls the radio and AC, and Amy always rode shotgun.

"Amy still staying out?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, she's not going to be back 'til after New Year," Cameron answered. "I think I'm going to go over to Jake's house and hang with her after school. Bring her some schoolwork, too, so she can keep her grades up."

"You're a real saint for helping her with this," Taylor said. "She really needs you right now with all she's going through."

"It's a big thing for her," Randal agreed.

"Not gonna lie, it's not very easy," Cameron said as he drove down the icy road. "I'm always worried that I'm going to wake up one morning with a call from Jake or Alice telling me that she's dead. That she slit her wrists or something."

Taylor suddenly remembered being back in Amy's room on Halloween; she had been wearing a long-sleeved shirt and had done a quick job of covering her arms when Taylor walked into the room. She had suspected Ay of cutting, but didn't want to upset her by bringing it up. She was also unsure if she should mention her concerns to Cameron, too. She was afraid that it might cause a fight between the two.

"What's wrong?" Randal asked.

"Huh?" Taylor looked up, confused before realizing what was going on. "Oh, I'm fine. Lips are still cold, though..." Taking the hint, Randal leaned in and began making out with his girlfriend. They eventually became so engrossed in each other that they were completely out of tuned with the goings on in the front seat.

"Hey, what's this?" Dustin asked from the front seat. He reached in-between the seat and the console and pulled out a holstered revolver pistol.

"Whoa, put that down!" Cameron screamed. Dustin quickly stuffed it back into the gap and stared straight ahead. "I got my concealed carry the other day, and I bought that last night from Harlin's Pawn Shop."

"Nice piece," Dustin said, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Behind them, Taylor and Randal continued making out, unaware of the exchange.

...

Taylor shed her jacket and hat the moment she stepped inside the door to the school. Randal was close behind her, stomping his feet to remove the snow from his boots.

"Fucking cold," he muttered to nobody in particular.

"We can warm each other up later," Taylor promised. "Maybe I could come stay at your house for a change."

"I'd like that," Randal said with a wide smile.

"Taylor?" Taylor turned around at the sound of her name being called; Carla was standing behind her, holding a massive stack of papers under her arm. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked. "When you get a moment, of course."

Taylor nodded quickly in agreement and Carla smiled as she walked off towards the office. Soon, she was out of earshot.

"I wonder what Ms. Miller wants," Randal pondered aloud.

"Not sure, but I'm in no great rush to find out," Taylor added quickly. Taylor had made a point of avoiding Carla whenever she could, as she was still pretty shaken from her nightmare on Halloween night, and the fact that she had dreamed about Freddy only after Carla told her about him didn't help at all.

"You can't dodge her forever," Randal said. "She is the AP, and she knows your schedule. If she needs to, she can straight-up pull you out of class and embarrass the fuck out of you." Randal chuckled, but Taylor didn't seem so cheerful about the joke.

"I know," Taylor finally conceded. "I guess I'd better go see what's up." Taylor gave Randal a quick peck on the lips and pushed past him. Randal turned and headed for his locker as Taylor approach Carla.

"Hey," Taylor said as she came up to the assistant principal.

"What's going on with you?" Carla said in a stern, hushed voice. "You've been avoiding me, not returning my calls. Have I done something to piss you off?"

"No," Taylor said, not able to sound anymore gloomy if she had tried.

"Is this about what happened on Halloween?" Carla asked. "The nightmare?"

Taylor perked up, suddenly filled with a sense of anxiety. "Randal told you about that?" Taylor asked, looking back at Randal.

"No, Randal told Dustin. And Dustin told Jake, who then told me. And I wanted to apologize if what I told you caused you to be upset, freaked you out. I just thought you needed to know the truth."

"Its fine," Taylor quickly muttered. "The nightmare doesn't bother me anymore. Amy, on the other hand..."

"I know," Carla frowned. "That's actually what I wanted to you. Walk with me?" Carla turned and headed down the hallway with Taylor beside her.

"How's Jake doing?" Taylor asked. "He's kinda come out of that funk he was in."

"Jake's doing as fine as can be, under the circumstances." Carla took a deep breath. "Jake and I took care of what was bugging him, so he's been able to rest kind of easier. Amy's situation has been stressing him out now, though."

"What's going on?"

"You obviously remember that breakdown she had on Halloween?"

Taylor paused mid-step, thinking back to that night, before speaking, shaking the image from her mind. "I have trouble forgetting."

"Yeah, me too," Carla said shaking her head. "Anyway, she's had a rough time these last couple weeks, what with not only adjusting back to a normal life outside of Westin Hills, but also now these hallucinations and panic attacks, I was wanting to do something for her. Something that would let her know she's not going through this alone."

"You mean like a sleepover?" Taylor said with a laugh.

"Actually, as it would so happen, that's exactly what I was thinking." Taylor looked at Carla with a puzzled look.

"Originally, I had planned on it being just a few girl friends, staying up late, watching horror movies on Netflix, spread gossip, stereotypical girly shit. But I brought it up to Jake and he came up with the idea of including other people like her. People who've gone through traumatic experiences, or somebody who's lost their family, like Jake has. Or Randal and Dustin. And you..." Carla looked directly at Taylor as she completed her sentence. "The thinking behind that being that we shared our stories with Amy to let her know that what she's going through may be rough, but she can still come out the other side smelling like roses, you know? So, would you be down for it?"

Taylor contemplated the idea for a moment. This definitely seemed like a nice gesture on Carla's part, but Taylor wasn't entirely sure about it. However, she decided that she definitely needed to be there for Amy; she did consider her a friend, after all.

"Yeah, of course," Taylor said. "When do you plan on doing this?"

"I was actually planning to do it tonight," Carla answered. "We're letting out for the Christmas holidays, so it seemed like as good a time to do it as any other."

"Tonight?" Taylor parroted. "I don't know, I was planning on spending the evening with Randal..."

"Bring him along," Carla encouraged. "We're doing this at my apartment, and I've got a pretty big place. Now, as your A.P. I can't encourage underage teen sex. But as your friend, I wouldn't mind if you and him fooled around on the couch or something. Just clean up any messes you make."

Taylor snorted loudly at Carla's joke, and was quick to clarify her comment. "Oh no, Randal and I are not having sex! I'm still-" Taylor quickly cut herself off, clamping her hand over her mouth to stop herself from talking.

"Really?" Carla asked, fascinated. "I wouldn't have guessed that was the case. The way I've seen you two look at each other from time to time, I'd have guess you'd be pros at it by now. But, hey, abstinence is a wise choice, too. The chances of teen pregnancy decrease the older you get."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Taylor remarked.

"Sure thing, Sergeant Know-It-All," Carla shot back. The two friends began laughing as they finally reached the office. "Come inside real quick, I'll write down my address. Come over around five, and bring Randal if you want."

"I will," Taylor said as they stepped into the office.

...

"A sleepover? That's all?" Randal laughed as he shook his head. What are we, seven?"

"I think it's a good idea. Amy needs to be surrounded my people she cares about, and we at least need to make an appearance, even if we don't stay the full night."

"I still think it's goofy a hell," Randal added.

"Goofy or not, Carla also said we can have the couch all to ourselves," Taylor moved in front of Randal and placed her arms around his waist while she stared up directly into his eyes, a tactic that, she had learned, caused Randal's resolve to virtually disappear. It worked; Randal's face dropped to a smile that meant he was about to agree.

"Okay, fine, we'll go," he finally agreed.

"Thanks, baby," Taylor said excitedly, leaning up to kiss Randal. "The sleepover starts at five."

"I'll be at the shop until six-thirty, but I'll be over afterwards."

"I'll keep a spot on the couch warm for you," Taylor said as she turned to leave. Randal couldn't help but notice that Taylor was making a less-than-subtle effort to pop her hips as she walked down the hall. A dumb, goofy smiled rose to Randal's face as he stared at Taylor's curvy hips and thighs and bubble-shaped ass; he bit the back of his hand to keep from screaming in frustration.

"Look at the shitter on that critter!"

Randal jumped ten feet when Dustin popped off the remark. "Jesus Christ in Hell," Randal exclaimed as Dustin chuckled excitedly.

...

"So are you and Taylor gonna do it tonight?" Dustin asked Randal as they walked into the shop later that afternoon. Randal shook his head, both to clear the snow from his face and head, and to answer Dustin's stupid question.

"No, we're not," Randal snapped. "Just drop-" Randal stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on a stack of massive boxes near the counter. "Ooh, our comics are in!" Randal ran around behind the counter and pulled a box-cutter from a drawer, slicing open the boxes to reveal stacks of Dream Child comics. The covers on all the series' were special edition lenticulars and holographics. "They're beautiful," Randal whispered.

"These are the special edition covers for January, right?" Dustin asked. When Randal nodded in agreement, Dustin continued. "Dude, Taylor's new series is in this shipment!"

"That's right!" Randal suddenly remembered. Taylor, who he learned was a brilliant writer, had begun writing a story as a method of dealing with the aftermath of her nightmare. Randal had found it, brought it to Jake, who convinced Taylor to publish it as a new series for the comic label.

Randal dug through the boxes until he finally opened one up and found what he was looking for: _My Soul to Take_, by Taylor King. The cover featured nine teens, walking abreast of each other, with their legs turning into streaks of blood running down the cover to pool at the bottom where the title was formed.

"Great job on the cover art, Randal," Dustin praised.

"I gotta call Taylor, tell her this is here." Dustin reached for the box, but had his hand slapped away by Randal. "Hey, did you forget the tradition?"

"Momentarily," Dustin said, sounding rather ashamed.

"In the case of a first issue, the author will be the one to pull the box. The first copy of the first issue pulled must be signed by the writer and encapsulated." Randal pointed to the top shelf above the counter, where other first-issues of Dream Child comics were signed on the cover and encapsulated to protect them from any and all wear and tear.

The door of the shop rang and Cameron stormed into the store, slamming the door behind him. There was something clenched in his hand, but Cameron was walking fast enough that Randal couldn't tell what it was.

"Cameron, I didn't know you were scheduled to work today," Randal said.

"I'm not," Cameron muttered, sounding pissed.

"The lenticulars are in," Dustin added.

"I don't care!" Cameron stormed into the back office and slammed the door behind him. Randal and Dustin looked at each other, both rather confused.

"What bug crawled up his ass and died?" Randal asked. Dustin shrugged and began pulling the issues out of the other boxes while Randal put aside the box with Taylor's comic. He pulled out his phone and dialed his girlfriend.

...

Taylor's phone rang just as she stepped out of the bathroom in Carla's apartment. She closed the door behind her as she fished the phone from her pocket to answer it.

"Hey, Randy, what's going on?"

"Your comic is here at the shop," came Randal's voice.

"Oh, great, I can't wait to see it!" Taylor squealed with excitement. "Carla, my comic is in!" Carla whooped from deep within the apartment and Taylor heard the clanking of glass bottles. "I'd celebrate more, but we're in the middle of a mini-crisis."

"Oh, what's up?"

"Cameron and Amy just had a huge fight," Taylor said. "She's in the bathroom balling her eyes out."

"So that's why he's so pissy," Randal noted.

"You've talked to him?" Taylor asked, eager to hear what was said.

"More like he came into the shop and stormed straight for the office. Haven't heard a peep since then."

"Go check on him, if you can," Taylor sounded concerned.

"What the hell happened?" Randal asked.

"I don't know, they just had this huge argument and now Amy's curled up in the bathroom over the toilet about to puke her guts up from crying so much. The poor girl doesn't need this right now, not with everything she's going through."

"Well that's why you're there for her, baby; you're there for emotional support, as am I, and Dustin, and Jake, Carla, all of us. Even Cameron, despite whatever it was that just happened."

"I hope you're right about that," Taylor shook her head. Carla exited the kitchen with three tall glasses of what looked like a fruity alcoholic beverage. She handed one to Taylor, who accepted it with her free hand.

"Wrap it up, we got work to do and the others will be showing up any minute."

Taylor nodded and returned to the call. "Babe, I gotta go but I'll see you when you get off, okay?"

"Will do, baby," Randal replied. "I love you."

"I love you too, Randy. Bye," Taylor hung up the phone and took a sip of the drink in her hand. "Whoo, that's strong!"

"Ever had a Raging Bull before?"

"Nope," Taylor answered. "I was expecting egg nog, given that it is Christmas."

"Saving it for later on tonight, when the fun starts," Carla chuckled as she opened the bathroom door. Amy was curled up, hugging herself, next to the toilet at the far end of the room. "Up and at 'em, Amelia Bedelia!"

"Go fuck yourself," Amy moaned from her place on the floor.

Taylor shook her head; this was going to be a long night.

...

Randal slid his phone back into his pocket and glanced back at the office door. Cameron hadn't left the office since arriving, and everything had been awfully silent.

"Dustin, did you see what Cameron had in his hand when he came in?"

Dustin shook his head and went back to stocking the shelves. "No, why?"

"Taylor said that Cameron and Amy had a fight a little bit ago, and that would explain why Cameron was so pissed off. You don't think Cameron would do anything stupid, do you?"

"Stupid like how?" Dustin looked back at his cousin. "Like punching his own ticket? No, he's smarter than that." Dustin suddenly looked like he was overcome with a moment of clarity. "Although, he did act kind of funny when I found his gun earlier..."

"His gun!" Randal's jaw dropped. "What gun?"

"He had a revolver in the car this morning," Dustin revealed. "Said he got a concealed carry permit for it."

"What the fuck does he need a concealed carry for?" Randal came out from behind the counter and made a beeline for the office door. Randal jiggled the handle, but it was locked from the other side. "Goddamnit!" Randal leaned his shoulder into the door and attempted to force it open. On the third hit, the door swung open freely and Randal saw Cameron sitting at the main desk. He had a revolver pistol in his hand, spinning the chamber before putting the barrel to his temple. Cameron turned towards the door and locked eyes with Randal a split second before pulling the trigger.

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	20. By the Throat

CHAPTER 17

BY THE THROAT

The hammer clicked down on the revolver, but hit nothing but an empty chamber. Randal's heart skipped several beats, waiting for the explosion and the shower of red that never came. By the time Cameron realized what had happened, Randal was upon him, knocking the gun from his hand and pushing him to the floor. Dustin came in behind him and reached for the gun on the floor.

"What the fuck was that?" Randal screamed at Cameron, who was now fighting the full weight of his friend kneeling on his backside.

"Give me my fucking gun back!"

"Fat fucking chance!" Dustin yelled. He opened the chamber with a click and found three bullets evenly spaced in the six-shot gun. "Were you seriously in here playing Russian Roulette?"

"That's none of your fucking business," Cameron spat.

"You just tried to redecorate Jake's office in Blood and Brain Red," Randal countered. "It's our fucking business. What the hell were you thinking?" Cameron went silent, watching Dustin unload the gun and place the bullets in his pocket before sliding the revolver into his pants waist.

Satisfied that the gun was no longer a threat, Randal pulled his knee off Cameron's back. Cameron thrashed as he scurried away from the Randal, backing himself against the wall on the floor.

"Why, man?" Randal asked calmly? "Why do this? What kind of fight did you and Amy have that made you think taking the chicken exit was a good idea?"

Cameron looked up at Randal, his face contorted in confusion. "How did you know about the fight?"

"It's called a cell phone. We use it to communicate. Randal and Taylor are very good at that." Dustin snidely remarked. "And where the hell did you get this thing, anyway?"

Cameron was silent, contemplative, as he drew his knees into his chest and rested his arms on his kneecaps, clearly trying to come up with the words to express what he was going through.

"After the Halloween thing, I knew that Amy wasn't going to be getting any better any time soon. And I thought that if Krueger was back, it would only get worse. So, I dialed back on her and kept my distance. She called me out on it today, and we got into a huge fight over it. I said some things that weren't nice, and she told me to fuck off."

Cameron took a ragged breath and began sobbing. Tears rolled down his face and his cheeks turned beet red as he cried his next words.

"This whole thing has been super hard. I mean, I spent all that time thinking she was dead. And then when I found out she was alive, the years of not knowing if she was going to ever come back, and now she is back and all this stuff that's been going on... I just couldn't take it!"

"So you decided you were going to clean your ears with a lead Q-tip," Randal noted. "I'm questioning your logic behind this. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, it's not something to fuck around with. And it's a selfish way to go, too."

"Think about your mom," Dustin said. "What do you think she would do if you died? She'd go right back to alcohol. Didn't she go to rehab so she could take care of you?"

Cameron nodded in agreement, and another sob emitted from his mouth.

"Or us, your friends?" Randal added. "Did it not occur to you that it would suck major balls for us if you killed yourself?" Cameron nodded again, tears pooling by his mouth. "What about Amy?" Cameron perked up at Amy's name.

"What about her?" he asked almost disdainfully.

"You were being so self-centered that you didn't stop to think about how this is affecting her. Think about what she's going through. She's the one that has to suffer with the mental breakdowns, the hallucinations. She's the one that takes every pill in the pharmacy. And those cuts on her arms? It's not Jake's cat, Cameron!"

Randal knelt down beside Cameron and placed a hand on his shoulder. "She needs your support more now than she ever has before. She still loves you, I know she does. Probably as much as you love her. And she's come so far since that first encounter. How do you think she would react if she lost the only person in the world who's been with her every step of the way?"

Cameron suddenly erupted into a full-blown cry-fest. The comic shop became filled with the sounds of his heavy sobbing and he shakily gasped for air in between his cries of "I'm sorry" and "I didn't want to hurt anyone." Cameron leaned into Randal and cried on his shoulder for what seemed like an eternity.

...

"Fuck Cameron," Amy said as she inhaled Carla's concoction, tossing the glass on the floor where it clattered loudly on the tile. "That little prick doesn't give two shits about me!"

"I wouldn't bet on that," Carla said as she sat on the bathtub, sipping her own drink and picking Amy's cup off the floor. There was a rather loud knock at the door, and Taylor, who was leaning against the doorway, turned around startled by the sudden sound. Carla looked up in surprise.

"I didn't expect anybody else this early," she said.

"I'll go answer it," Taylor said. She turned and walked into the entrance hall peeking through the peephole in the door. Dustin stood outside in the snow, a look of urgency on his face.

"It's Dustin," Taylor called out as she opened the door. "Hey," she said as she embraced him. "What are you doing here? I thought you were working today."

"Taylor, what I'm about to tell you is very serious," Dustin said gravely. "Can you get Carla in here?"

"My name, it was said?" Carla appeared in the entrance hall, and seemed just as surprised as Taylor had been to see Dustin.

"Cameron just tried to kill himself," Dustin said quietly.

The words hit Taylor's ear and left her dumbstruck, as if the whole sentence was a foreign language. "What?" she finally responded after the full weight of the action fully sank in.

"Cameron somehow found a revolver and tried to play Russian Roulette with it in the shop office." Dustin pulled the revolver out of his waist and held it up. Carla's face twisted up in confusion.

"What the shit?" she whispered, snatching the gun from his hand.

"Is Cameron okay?" Taylor asked.

"He's fine. A little distraught, but he's fine."

"Is he with you?"

"No, he's not," Dustin asked. "I dropped him and Randal off at Jake's house."

"Good, that'll keep him out of trouble," Carla said. "Now if we can just get Amy..." Carla turned back into the bathroom and suddenly went silent before springing to life and bolting into the bathroom.

"Amy, Jesus Christ!" Carla shouted loudly as she rushed into the bathroom. Taylor rushed in after her and saw Amy sitting on the toilet seat, wrist extended before her and dragging something along her arm. Blood dripped down onto the floor and it clicked in Taylor's head that Amy was cutting again. Carla grab Amy's arm and wrestled a small, thin razor blade, fresh with wet blood, from her hands and threw it into the sink. Dustin pushed past her with a towel in hand and pressed it onto Amy's slashed wrist.

"Goddammit, Amy, why now, of all times?" Carla asked angrily. Amy didn't respond, instead staring blankly off into the distance. Carla quickly bandaged Amy's wrists and helped her stand up.

"Taylor, could you help her into my room?" Carla asked. "I need to talk with Dustin for a moment." Taylor nodded and took Amy by the shoulders and steered her towards the back bedroom. Once she was out of earshot, Carla finally flipped shit.

"Goddamnit, the last thing we need is this shit on our laps!" She continued as Dustin shushed her, telling her to keep her voice down. "First the nightmares, then Cameron, and now this? I'm at a loss what to do. I don't know how to handle this. Freddy, I can deal with. But two of my friends attempting suicide on the same day..." Carla choked on her own breath as tears began streaming down her face.

"Hey, don't cry," Dustin said, wiping away the tears from Carla's face. "They're both still alive."

"This is so out of character for both of them," Carla said through tears. "I wouldn't be surprised if Freddy was somehow pulling the strings on this. Trying to get them to off themselves somehow."

"It could be," Dustin said. "It could also be they just had a bad idea at the same time and need to chill out for a day or two to come to their senses."

"I hope so," Carla shook her head.

...

Taylor was relaxing on the couch in Carla's bedroom a while later while Amy slept on the bed. Carla and Dustin had gone over to Jake's house to talk to Cameron, and Carla had decided to call off the "sleepover" due to the circumstances. The plan now was to have Jake and Dustin keep an eye on Cameron ad Jake's house while Randal and Carla helped Taylor watch Amy. They had left Taylor in charge of Amy while they were gone, mostly to keep her bandages changed whenever they got too bloody. Fortunately, the cuts hadn't been very deep, but they were still not pleasant to look at. Taylor had already changed them once before the bleeding slowed and nearly fainted at the sight of them.

Despite the events of the day, Taylor was actually resting rather soundly. She wished she could say the same for Amy, however. She'd been sleeping restlessly for nearly an hour now, muttering every once in a while about Cameron or her parents. Taylor wondered if she should wake her up and try to calm her down, but decided that Amy really needed to rest. She was under the impression that Amy wasn't sleeping very well, and in truth Taylor herself was having trouble falling asleep. She wasn't sure why, but the last several weeks, she'd been apprehensive about falling asleep. The only times when she felt safe enough to go to sleep was when Randal was sleeping next to her.

The muffled sound of the X-Files whistle came from Taylor's pocket, signaling a text message. She checked her phone and saw a message from Randal.

Randal: _Getting ready to head back; still awake?_

Taylor: _For the moment. Everything good with Cam?_

Randal: _He's fine. He got a stern lecture and an apple pie from Alice._

Taylor chuckled at that. Alice was definitely the kind of mom to hug you with one arm and beat some sense into you with the other.

Taylor: _Probably not gonna sleep tonight; where's the coffee? Lol_

Randal: _Carla says 3__rd__ cabinet from the fridge. Save some for me :)_

Taylor smiled as she made her way into the kitchen. She flipped on the coffee pot and soon had herself a hot cup of joe brewing. She heard footsteps enter the kitchen and turned to see Amy shuffling out of the hallway, hair frazzled and clothes creased from where she had laid on them.

"Hey, sleepy head," Taylor remarked. "Feeling better?"

"Not exactly," Amy replied. "Where is everyone? I thought this was supposed to be some kind of sleepover?"

"Carla cancelled it," Taylor said. "Coffee?"

"Please," Amy nodded. Taylor poured two cups and handed one to Amy. Amy reached into a jar and pulled out a heaping spoon of sugar.

"Can't sleep either?" Taylor asked.

"No," Amy answered. "Haven't slept much at all since Halloween."

"Me neither," Taylor said. "I've lately been pretty apprehensive about sleeping."

"You've been having nightmares, too?" Amy asked eagerly.

Taylor cocked her eyebrows and shook her head. "No, I haven't. I mean, I had one pretty rough one a while back, but none since. I'm just feeling uneasy about sleep."

"Lucky," Amy shook her head. "I see him every time I close my eyes almost."

"Who, Cameron?" Taylor asked.

"No, not Cameron," Amy took a sip of her coffee. "Freddy. Freddy Krueger."

A chill went up Taylor's spine at Freddy's name. That was the man she had dreamed about, the name Amy had been screaming when she was taken to the hospital that same night.

"He's dead, sweetie," Taylor said attempting to soothe Amy's clear unease. "He can't hurt you."

"I wish I could believe that," Amy replied somberly. "I see his ugly, scarred face every time I close my eyes. I feel his hot, sticky breath on my face and neck, his hands closing around my throat, blades digging into my face..." Amy's body shivered in fear and she continued. "No, Taylor, Freddy is very much alive..." Amy took her finger and tapped her head. "...in here."

She took another sip of her coffee. "He's in our heads, finds us in our dreams, when we're the most vulnerable. And he's left a mark on each of us." Amy made a point of pulling her hair back and showing off her full set of scars and her blind eye. Taylor had briefly glimpsed them before, but she hadn't gotten a close look at them; the scars were uniform and precise, four parallel lines crossing her face diagonally across her eye, which was milky white with a blue hue to it

"Oh Lord," Taylor gasped. She reached up with her hand and traced down one scar.

"I was fifteen when he gave me this, right before I spent three years in Westin Hills for mental trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So no, as much as I'd like to believe you, that Freddy is dead and gone, he's still very much alive..."

Taylor's phone signaled another text from Randal. Taylor checked it quickly while Amy took another sip of coffee,

Randal:_ Have you heard from Cameron?_

Taylor was somewhat confused by the question. Hadn't Randal said earlier that he was with Cameron was at Jake's?

Taylor: _No, I haven't. Why?_

Randal: _Because he's gone, and we can't find him._

Taylor's face dropped in confusion. Gone? Where the hell could he have gotten off to?

"Hey, Amy, do you have your pho-" There was a sound of shattering glass and Taylor quickly looked up in the kitchen, but Amy was gone now, too. Her coffee, however, was spilled onto the floor, cup shattered to pieces. "Amy?" Taylor called out. "Amy, are you in the bathroom again?"

Taylor stepped out into the hallway and looked around. The rest of the apartment was dark, but the closed door at end of the hall had a light coming from under it. The apartment was also inexplicably getting somewhat warm. Taylor walked up to the door and pushed it open.

Amy was sleeping soundly on the bed, as she had been a few minutes ago when Taylor left her to make coffee, but there was someone standing over her now, too, with his back to the door, Taylor couldn't see his face, but she recognized his clothes from earlier that day.

"Cameron?" Taylor called. Cameron turned to face Taylor, and revealed a massive hole his left cheek, smoking as if from a gunshot. Blood poured down his neck and his teeth were visible through the hole, blackened and charred from the heat of the gunshot. He raised up his right hand, which was covered in a leather glove with four long razors on each finger. He held up the index blade to his lips and pressed it to them so that it cut into his flesh.

"Shhhh... She's asleep..." Cameron said in a voice that wasn't Cameron's, very unnatural sounding and clearly sinister.

Taylor stood in the doorway, frozen as "Cameron" took the razor claws and traced all of them across the scars on Amy's face. "Still as young and fresh as the day I gave her these..."

As quickly as Taylor could blink, "Cameron" was suddenly sitting on the couch, his face normal once more, but he was motionless. Where he had stood, Taylor recognized the man from her nightmare on Halloween.

Freddy Krueger.

He took his razor fingers and dragged them across Amy's face, tracing along her scars. He gave a quick flick and left a small cut on her cheek, and small drops of blood welled up around the tiny wound. Krueger leaned down and licked the blood off Amy's skin. Taylor squirmed inside her own skin as Krueger spoke.

"I think I'll save this sweet thing for later..."

He then smiled at Taylor, baring his pointed, bloody teeth before turning his gaze to the couch where Cameron lay on the couch, slowly stirring. Oddly, it wasn't the couch Taylor had been sleeping on earlier, but she recognized it as one from Jake's house.

"How about I start with this one?" Krueger suggested mockingly as he crossed the room to the couch. He ran his finger blades through Cameron's hair, dragging them down the side of his face and putting them around his throat. Krueger chuckled demonically as Taylor tried to step forward, but her legs refused to move.

"No!" she screamed. It was like her feet were super-glued to the floor. No, it was like her feet were _part_ of the floor! Every time she tried to lift her leg to move, her feet refused to budge! Panic rose inside her and her heart began beating like a jackhammer! "No, stop! Please, let him go!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Krueger taunted. "Didn't you know? This is my world, bitch. In my world, you do what I say. And I say..."

Cameron's eyes snapped open and he quickly locked eyes with Krueger as he stood over him.

"..DIE!"

"No!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "No, not you! Not you! You're dead! YOU'RE DEAD-"

Freddy quickly drew his claws back and dug the four blades deep into Cameron's neck! Blood poured from the wounds as Freddy dragged the blades around Cameron's neck with the unsettling sound of ripping flesh and neck bones cracking, opening it up so blood gushed like a waterfall from his throat! Air escaped from his lungs through the gashes and caused the blood to bubble and pop, Cameron's mouth still frozen mid-scream, life draining from his face!

And Taylor could do nothing but watch mortified as her friend was slaughtered before her eyes! Krueger dug his fist into his neck and pulled him off the couch, tossing the corpse at Taylor's feet. She involuntarily collapsed to her knees and found herself staring directly into Cameron's eyes as the last bits of life finally left them, and they became cold and dead.

"This isn't over, princess," Krueger hissed. He took one blade and pressed the tip to the bottom of Taylor's chin, forcing her to look up at him. "I'm just getting started...

"Ah-hahahahahahahahahahahaha!" Krueger lunged in and ferociously licked Taylor's cheeks and forced his tongue into her mouth, causing her to scream!

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

...

"Cameron!"

Taylor sat bolt upright on the couch, drenched in sweat, and felt the chills going up and down her spine and arms. Her breaths were shallow and ragged, and she could hear herself sobbing uncontrollably.

_It was just a nightmare,_ she told herself. _It wasn't real._

It took her several moments to realize the sobbing was not coming from her, but from the bed a few feet over.

"Cameron!" Amy screamed again. "No!"

"Amy, what's wrong," Taylor asked, leaping from the couch and onto the bed. "Amy, baby, calm down for a minute!"

Amy finally caught her breath, but tears still streaked down her face. She sobbed breathlessly between words. "I... had... a... nightmare... about... Cameron!"

Taylor felt the bottom of her stomach bottom out, and she suddenly became very nauseous. She anticipated what was coming next with dread.

"Freddy... Freddy killed him. He slit his throat open and... and..." Amy broke into hysterical sobbing, and Taylor quickly threw her arms around her to comfort her.

"It's fine, sweetie, it was all just a dream. Just a bad dream, that's it..." Taylor said, convincing enough that she almost believed it herself. "I'm gonna go make us some coffee, okay?" Amy nodded and wiped the tears from her face. Taylor kissed her on the forehead and went into the kitchen.

Taylor felt a crunch underfoot and a sharp pain in her heel. She jumped up and leapt backwards, twisting her foot around to see the bottom of it; a small shard of glass was sticking out of her heel. She pulled it out with her fingernails and set her foot back down gingerly.

She then noticed the shattered mug on the floor, the same one Amy had earlier before, the one that she had dropped on the floor when she disappeared...

"What the shit?" Taylor muttered. The coffee on the floor was still warm, too. Taylor looked at the coffee pot and saw it still full of steaming coffee.

"That's not possible," she whispered. "It was a dream, wasn't it?"

Taylor's phone suddenly went off from inside her pocket, startling her momentarily. She quickly answered it before looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" she asked apprehensively.

"Taylor!" shouted Randal, clearly upset, sounding to be on the brink of tears himself. "Thank God you're alright!"

"Randal!" Taylor sighed. "Something really weird is happening-"

"Cameron's dead."

The words took a full minute to sink in. Taylor heard them, but she could not comprehend them at all. "What did you say?"

"Cameron is dead, I don't..." Randal's voice cracked as he spoke. He tried to form more words, but failed.

"What happened to him?" Taylor asked, even though she already knew the answer. "And Randal, please, do not lie to me."

Randal was silent and Taylor was about to hang up when Jake's voice spoke through the phone.

"He was murdered," Jake explained. "He was murdered by Freddy-"

"Freddy Krueger," Taylor finished, and she hung up the phone.

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	21. Aftermath

_Hello, again, loyal readers! Today's chapter comes on a rather somber note. As most of you are probably well aware, horror maestro Wes Craven, who is best known as the creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street, on which this fan-fiction is obviously based, died last month. This is the first chapter to be posted in the wake of his death (which came, rather ironically, on the heels of the first character death in my own story). As such, this chapter is dedicated to him and the legacy of horror he left behind for fans to enjoy for decades to come. I will also be crafting a character who will be appearing in an upcoming chapter after him, as well. And at the end of this chapter, I'll have a brief eulogy for Craven for those who wish to read it. That's all I got for this week. Until next time, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 18

AFTERMATH

The sun was just barely cresting the horizon to the east, casting a soft glow that reflected on the snow in front of Jake's house. The yard was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape and police vehicles blocked off a segment of the street with crowds gathering outside the barricades to watch the scene unfold.

Randal and Dustin sat on the porch with Carla nearby, shakily smoking a cigarette as a rough-looking police officer grilled her hard. Carla's hair was frizzy and her cheeks were flecked with drying blood.

Cameron's blood...

Randal's own hands looked like he had dunked them in a bucket of red Kool-Aid, they were stained so red. The whole scene was replaying in an endless loop inside his head, yet he still couldn't process it...

"Well, this fucking stinks," Dustin popped off.

"Understatement of the year," Randal agreed. "This whole thing is one big fuster-cluck."

Out the corner of his eyes, Randal saw Taylor walking up the sidewalk.

"Taylor!" Randal shouted, leaping from the porch and breaking into a dead run. The two met in the center of the yard and immediately embraced.

"Are you alright?" he asked, nearly in tears. "I was so worried..."

"Yes, I'm fine," Taylor said breathlessly. "I'm just fine. What happened?"

"We don't know exactly," Randal replied. "Cameron was sleeping on the couch. Carla and I were about to head back to the apartment but Cam suddenly started shaking and seizing. Carla tried to wake him up, but the gashes suddenly appeared on his neck! I tried to make the bleeding stop, but he..." Randal wiped the tears from his face as he continued crying. Taylor took notice of Randal's bloodied hands and gripped them tightly.

"There was nothing you, or anybody else, could have done," Taylor comforted. "It was out of our control."

"I know," Randal nodded.

"Where's Alice?" Amy asked.

"She's talking to sheriff Williams right now," Randal motioned towards where Alice was being interviewed by a large, round man who was chomping on a cigar.

"I need to talk to her about what happened," Taylor said sternly. "About what I saw."

"What you saw?" Randal asked. "What are you talking about? You were half-a-mile away."

Taylor was about to respond, but a sudden, and very loud, wail from behind her distracted her. She turned and saw a middle-aged woman leap from the driver's seat of her car, which was still in drive, rolling along at about five-miles-per-hour or less, mounting the curb and running over a mailbox while the former driver ran across the snow towards the house, still screaming.

"Where is he? Where is my son?" Her words were slurred and she ran past the police barricade straight into the yellow tape, tripping over it in her hysterical state. "CAMERON!"

"Oh shit," Alice bemoaned from nearby. "She's plastered already."

Sheriff Williams turned around to see the commotion and immediately swore at the woman in a gruff voice. "Ma'am, you need to return to your vehicle immediately!"

"I need to see my son!" she screamed. "CAMERON!"

Sheriff Williams started to say something else, but was distracted by the squeaking of wheels coming from the house. The medical examiner wheeled out a gurney with a bloody white sheet draped over it out the door and down the steps.

"Oh God," the sheriff bemoaned.

The woman drunkenly walked across the lawn towards the gurney as Sheriff Williams tried to get to it before she could. "Ma'am, you don't need to see this-"

"He's my son!" she screamed at him, reaching for the sheet and ripping it away. She fell backwards off balance with the bloody sheet in her hand, revealing the decimated corpse of Cameron Miller to the world.

The woman laid eyes on Cameron's body, four large ragged slashes across his throat that were bloody and bruised. Williams quickly grabbed the sheet from the woman and threw it back over the body.

"Get him out of here," he said to the M.E., who quickly wheeled it out to the ambulance on the street. The woman collapsed to her knees, ejecting her stomach contents on the fresh-fallen snow.

"That's Cameron's mom, isn't it?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, she used to be an alcoholic, but she'd been clean for years," Dustin said.

"Looks like she fell off the wagon. Hard." Taylor shook her head as Williams helped Cameron's mom to her feet.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry you had to see that," he said as he helped her to her feet. She jerked away from Sheriff Williams and her eyes landed on Alice a few yards away.

"You!" she slurred at Alice. "This is your fault! It's your fault my son is dead!" Cameron's mom suddenly jerked away from Sheriff Williams and half stumbled-half ran towards Alice. "This is all on your slutty head!"

"Gwyneth, I'm real sorry this happened," Alice stepped off the porch. "But you know exactly what happened to your son, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop it!"

"You lying bitch!" Gwyneth screamed. "I'll kill you for this! You and your bastard son-"

Before anybody had a chance to blink, Alice threw and landed a powerful right cross to Gwyneth's cheek, sending her to the ground in a daze. Alice stepped backwards and put her hands up as, almost instantly, a pair of police officers were behind her, putting her hands behind her back to be cuffed.

"That won't be necessary," Sheriff Williams said as he approached. "I saw the whole thing; self-defense. Take this one over to the ambulance."

One of the cops nodded. "Yes, sir." The cops stepped away and picked Gwyneth's unconscious body in the snow and helped her off the yard.

"I'm really sorry about that," Williams apologized.

"No, she's right," Alice admitted. "It's my fault her son is dead."

"No, it's not," Williams consoled as his voice dropped to a whisper. "I've been dealing with this Krueger bastard for twenty years now, and trust me when I say that this does not land on you, or your kids.

"Look, we'll talk later, my office," Williams added as he replaced his Sheriff's cap. "Right now, I gotta finish cleaning up this mess. Is there some place you and your kids can stay for a couple days? I mean, this is a crime scene after all."

Alice thought for a moment before shaking her head. "No, this is my family's house."

"I'll get you a motel room, put you up for a couple days." Williams walked back towards the house as Alice turned back to where Randal and Taylor stood.

"Taylor?" Alice seemed shocked by her presence. She quickly ran towards her and hugged her tightly. "God, what are you doing here?"

"I have something I need to talk to you about," Taylor said. "All of you, and it's really important."

"Okay," Alice agreed. "Where's Amy?"

"Back at Carla's apartment," Taylor answered. "Listen, something happened to me tonight. I don't know how, but I saw Cameron die."

Alice was suddenly stunned by the words that Taylor spoke, as was Randal. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said: I watched Cameron die tonight. I watched Freddy kill him."

The color drained from Alice's face; she suddenly looked less like she had seen a ghost as opposed to she actually looked like a ghost herself. She stumbled backwards and found the edge of the porch and sat down on it.

"What happened?" Alice asked after a moment.

"I was taking care of Amy, and I left for a bit to make some coffee. When I came back, this man, Freddy, was standing over Amy and Cameron. He then grabbed Cameron and used these knives on his fingers to slash his neck open."

"Jesus," Randal exclaimed. "And you saw this happen?"

"I thought it was a dream, a nightmare, but when I woke up, I wasn't sure at all. Things that I thought happened in my dream had actually happened. I wasn't sure if I was awake or asleep. I'm still not sure," Taylor admitted.

Alice shook her head. "I was hoping you wouldn't find out like this," she said softly.

"Find out what?" Taylor asked confused.

"You were dreaming, Taylor," Alice said. "But it was also very real. What you saw, it really happened."

"What are you talking about?" Taylor asked.

"It was wrong; we shouldn't have kept the truth from you," Randal added. "It just put you in more danger not knowing what you're dealing with."

"Randal, baby, you're scaring me. What the hell is going on?"

"Freddy Krueger," Alice said. "He was a real person-"

"Yes, I know," Taylor snapped. "Carla told me. She also told me that he's dead. But I don't get it; how could I have seen him kill Cameron then?"

"Because Freddy Krueger is not dead, sweetie," Alice admitted. "He is very much alive. And he is going to kill all of us."

Taylor's head was spinning. She understood what Alice was telling her, but she could not accept it. Nothing about it made sense. If he really was alive, then how come he hadn't killed anyone before tonight? It was all so confusing, and Taylor suddenly felt very dizzy.

"I need to sit down..." Taylor moaned, joining Alice on the porch. "This doesn't make sense. How did he kill Cameron and get away with it? Shouldn't the cops be out looking for him?"

"They can't, honey," Alice said. "In our world, Freddy Krueger really is dead."

"Our world?" Taylor asked.

"Yes, our world. Over fifty years ago, Freddy Krueger was a real person, a monster. He killed and raped dozens of children in the neighborhood before he was caught. He went on trial, but it came out during his trial that someone signed the search warrant in the wrong spot, making all the evidence the police had gathered inadmissible in court and Krueger was free just like that," Alice snapped her fingers in front of Taylor.

"What... What happened to him?" Taylor asked, her voice trembling.

"The parents of the town, of the kids he killed, tracked him down to the boiler room of this old factory where he took his victims. They trapped him inside and torched the whole place. The whole town watched it burn. The police made no arrests, the firemen made no effort to stop the blaze. It was the town's dirty little secret. Nobody spoke of it again.

"Years later, the town's children began dying in their sleep. It drove people crazy not knowing why. Many of them were chalked up as suicides, but the truth was that Freddy had killed them. Somehow, he managed to transcend our reality and go to a place where he was able to go after kids at their most vulnerable: in their dreams while they slept."

"And that's how he killed Cameron?" Taylor asked. "That's how he's been going after Amy?"

"Yes," Alice nodded. "He's tried to kill others, too. Carla, Randal..." Alice nodded towards Randal, who hung his head low. "Even me and my son." Alice finished.

"This is... This is almost too much," Taylor gasped. "Kills us in our dreams... None of us are safe, are we?"

"No," Alice answered. "We're not. And until he's gone for good, we never will be."

"Isn't there something we can do?" Taylor asked eagerly.

"I've asked myself that same question for twenty-five years, honey," Alice replied. "Every time I think we've finally ended him, he comes back stronger than ever before. We're all afraid of him, and as long we're afraid, he'll always come back."

"It's a miracle he's been gone as long as he has," Randal added. "But now he's back, and what follows next is unavoidable."

"And what's that?" Taylor asked fearfully, but she already knew. Deep down in her heart, she knew the answer.

"People are going to die," Alice said softly. "Lots of people..."

...

A few hours later, Taylor was sitting back in her own room, listening to Shaman's Harvest through her headphones and reflecting on what she had learned. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms were wrapped around her legs. She was lost in her own thoughts, her mind drifting back to the image of Krueger slashing Cameron's throat in front of her.

"Cuz?" Taylor jumped up in fear, not expecting Carson to be standing next to her bed, a somber look on his face, his eyes puffy and red as if he'd been crying.

"What's wrong, Carson?" Taylor asked as she removed her headphones.

"I heard about Cameron," Carson said. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Taylor lied. "Come here." Taylor extended her arms for a hug from her cousin.

"And here I thought this Christmas was actually going to rock." Taylor said. She suddenly burst into tears on Carson's shoulder. "First my parents, and now one of my best friends. This fucking sucks."

Carson nodded. "I don't even know what to say in a situation like this. Suicides suck major balls."

Taylor's heart skipped a beat. Was suicide the "official" story the police and the news were going with? It made sense; Alice said all of Krueger's other murders were reported as suicides, but shouldn't Carson be made aware of what was going on?

Alice had said that as long as people were afraid, Krueger would come back. It stood to reason that keeping Carson in the dark about the truth might protect him; if he wasn't afraid, Krueger couldn't hurt him.

"Yeah, it does," Taylor admitted as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I can't believe he's just gone like that."

"Me neither," Carson said. "Hey, I'll go make us some lunch. Fried bologna sandwiches sound good?"

"Sounds great," Taylor said with a smile.

...

"She's finally asleep, thank God," Jake said as he returned to his motel room, collapsing down onto the bed next to Carla.

Sheriff Williams had put up Jake, Alice, and Amy in two motel rooms. Amy and Alice shared a room while Jake had one to himself. Amy was currently in the other room, and had been crying for hours.

"Did she take her meds?" Carla asked.

Jake nodded affirmatively. "I've never seen her so eager for that Hypnocil."

"I wouldn't mind a dose of it myself," Carla mentioned. "I'm almost afraid to close my eyes. I keep seeing it, his neck just opening up like that..." Carla shivered and Jake wrapped his arm around her to calm her. "I forgot how brutal Krueger could be."

"He's fucking with us," Jake said. "He's had plenty of chances to kill Amy, the most vulnerable out of all of us, but he kills Cameron first? He's toying with us..."

"Don't think like that," Carla turned over on the bed to face Jake. "That implies that there's nothing we can do to stop him."

Jake looked at Carla contemplatively for a moment before speaking again. "Maybe there isn't. He's always come back, every time. Maybe he really is eternal..."

Carla closed her eyes in an attempt to fight back tears, shaking her head in denial. "I'm scared, Jake," she cried.

"You'd be insane if you weren't," Jake finally said.

Carla nestled herself against Jake and tried to fall asleep; after nearly an hour, she finally succeeded. Jake joined her minutes later.

_Proceed to next chapter..._

* * *

_The first time I ever watched a Wes Craven film, it actually was not Nightmare on Elm Street. It wasn't Scream, or The Hills Have Eyes. It was The Serpent and the Rainbow. I was seven, and even though my parents, who were watching the film, told me not to watch it, I remember sneaking into the hallway and watching it from there. It terrified the bejesus out of me, in particular the tarantula scene at the end (being buried alive is bad enough; with a giant hairy spider thrown into the coffin, NO THANK YOU). I didn't see the original Nightmare until I was twelve, when AMC began playing horror films during their FrightFest marathons. At this point, I was familiar with the character Freddy Krueger. So when my sisters and I sat down for Nightmare 1 for the first time, I remember being absolutely blown away by the film. I'd never seen anything like it before: a serial killer who comes after you in your dreams? That was a terrifying concept, not being able to dream lest you get killed. And then as time went on, I eventually saw the rest of the films, including New Nightmare, which became my absolute favorite of the entire series, and perhaps my favorite horror film ever._

_The first fan-fiction I ever wrote was a crossover story between Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers from Halloween. I never finished it, at least that version of it; I split the narrative of the two characters together into two different tales, one of which evolved into Halloween: Vengeance, which I have published on this site, and the other into the story you are currently reading. As for Children of Elm Street, this is a tale I have been working on for nearly a decade and is very much like Halloween: Vengeance: completely different from the original concept, but still inspired by Wes Craven's stroke of genius. And now he's gone. I always had a wishful-thinking fantasy that Craven would return to make one final Nightmare film, but I'm just going to have to make do with attempting to tell a Nightmare story that he would have been proud of. Thank you for the screams..._

_Wes Craven_

_August 8, 1939 - August 30, 2015_

_Sleep in peace..._


	22. Don't Be Afraid

CHAPTER 19

DON'T BE AFRAID

December 20, 2015

The last person Alice Johnson expected to see inside Sheriff Williams' office was Lisa Webber. The Springwood High principal sat in a leather chair on the opposite side of the desk as Williams, who had open in front of him an old collapsible folder with yellowed papers containing hand-written documents and reports, as well as grisly crime-scene photographs that must have been at least fifty years old.

Alice looked down at the file on the desk and her brow furrowed. She knew exactly what it was.

"Why did you have to dig that old thing up?" Alice shook her head at Williams.

"Could you please close the door?" Williams asked politely. Alice did so, with a little more 'umph' than was probably necessary, before sitting down next to Lisa. "I have this file out because the person whom this file concerns killed a young man in your house early this morning. And we need to decide what our next step is."

"Our next step is we bury this poor child," Alice answered, sounding very indignant. "Can't we at least have a few days of mourning before you round up the kids and ship them off to Westin like what happened before?"

Sheriff Williams shook his head. "That was a mistake, Ms. Johnson. The Westin Quarantine was the decision of the members of city hall, not just my own. And it didn't work, so we're not making the same mistake twice."

"Damn right it didn't work," Lisa swore. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and flipped the top of the container open. She pulled out a smoke and stuck it to her lips, struggling with the lighter for a moment before Williams pulled out a matchbook and struck one to light it for her.

Lisa looked over at Alice and offered up the pack. Alice politely shook her head and Lisa put the smokes away.

"Treating those kids like they were infected with a disease was a stupid idea, and it actually only made the situation worse," Lisa said.

"You're telling me things I already know," Williams said as he opened up a box of his own from his desk, pulling out a rather large Cuban cigar. "Well I'm not going to do the same thing again and expect a different result."

"The definition of insanity," Alice commented coldly.

"Ms. Johnson, I'm trying here," Williams pleaded. "I've listened to everything you've had to say about how to deal with Krueger for the last three years, and it worked for a bit. But the fact remains that a young boy died in your house this morning, and we need to have an offensive ready for when Krueger strikes again."

Alice shook her head in disbelief. "You're asking me to put my son's friends at risk _again_?"

It was Lisa's turn to speak. "You know the Dream Warriors are the best defense we have against him."

"And one of them was just killed this morning, or did you miss that part?" Alice hissed. "I'm sorry, Sheriff, but I can't ask these kids to do that again. I don't know if you remember, but they lost someone last time, too."

"And they're going to lose more if they do nothing," Lisa leaned forward in her seat as she spoke. "How many kids does this town have, Sheriff?"

"At last Census, about 600 in the school system," Williams replied. "Another two hundred younger than six."

Lisa looked back at Alice with a stern look. "Eight hundred children. And all of them will be dead if we don't do something about him-"

"Then you do something!" Alice snapped. "You're treating my son like he's John fucking Connor, but he's just a kid who runs a comic shop. His friends, they're not ready for this fight. Not in the state they're in today."

"Then help them be ready," Lisa added. "You know Krueger better than almost anyone else alive. Your whole family has been at the center of it since the beginning. Your dad was Krueger's-"

"Leave my father out of this," Alice said, suddenly becoming very bitter.

"She wasn't trying to say anything against your father," Williams interjected.

"No, enough!" Alice screamed as she stood fast. "My father lived with his mistake for forty years! You're not going to drag his name through the mud and blame this whole thing on him!"

"Nobody said this was your father's fault," Lisa said. "Everyone in this town had a role in how things played out that day. Alice, just calm down."

Alice put her hands on her head and took several deep breaths, pushing the blond hair out of her face as she tried to regain her composure.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "I don't know what came over me." She took a deep breath and looked at Williams. "Look, Sheriff, we can't risk putting those kids in danger like that. We'll come up with another solution, but right now we need to focus on Cameron's funeral. Give everybody a few days to grieve."

Williams nodded his head slowly. "Alright, I can agree to that," he said as he started to close the folder. Alice stared at the file for a moment before reaching across the table to grab it.

"May I?" she asked. Williams nodded and allowed Alice to pick it up. She opened it and observed its contents, a bunch of police reports, witness statements, autopsy reports, and other official documents.

Alice had seen many of these before, but most all of them had been heavily redacted and blacked out. This was the first time she'd seen these original, uncensored documents, though she knew exactly what they were.

The first thing she pulled was a massive document she knew was the official court transcript. She'd read it over a thousand times, because her father had one exactly like it. Everyone present in the courtroom that day received one in the mail shortly afterwards. Even the lawyers. Even Krueger's lawyer.

But by that point, it didn't matter; Freddy Krueger was dead and buried by that point. At least, he was for the time being.

"Alice?" Alice snapped back to reality as Lisa spoke to her. "Are you gonna be alright?"

Alice nodded as she put the papers back into the folder, placing them back on the desk. "Yeah, I'll be alright. I better go talk with Cameron's mom, get the funeral arrangements started." Alice turned and quickly left the room.

...

December 22nd, 2014

Two full days had passed, and Taylor still wasn't sure how to process everything that had happened. The past forty-or-so hours had been one massive blur, and she'd barely slept a wink the night before, afraid that she would have another nightmare. She'd gone to the corner drug store and picked up a massive amount of Stay-Awake and was quickly making close friends with a man named Mr. Coffee.

In fact, she was in the middle of brewing a pot in the kitchen when she heard a knock at the door. Before she could react, Carson had bounded down the stairs and opened the door.

"Hey, man," Taylor overheard Carson say as the door swung open with a creak. "She's in the kitchen."

Seconds later, Randal stepped into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Taylor's waist. "Hey, beautiful," he said as he kissed her.

"Morning, baby," she said softly, leaning against him and feeling his warm body envelope hers. "What are you doing here? It's like five in the morning."

"I didn't hear from you yesterday, so I came by to check up on you."

"I'm fine, Randy," Taylor insisted. "I'm just..." She was hesitant to spit out the words, but Randal did it for her.

"Afraid to go to sleep?"

Taylor nodded eagerly. "I'm always afraid I'll just close my eyes and he'll be right there in front of me with those damn claws and that foul breath and the burns on his body... It's terrifying."

"I know it is," Randal said as he grabbed the coffee pot and poured a cup for himself. "But there's a trick I learned, that all of us have learned, and I'll teach it to you."

"What kind of trick?" Taylor asked as she grabbed a mug from the cabinet.

"Don't be afraid of him," Randal responded casually.

Taylor looked rather confused. "That sounds easier said than done."

"It is, but not impossible," Randal took a sip of the coffee, but quickly jerked the cup away from his lips. "Oh, that's hot."

"It's fresh coffee, dumbass," Taylor smiled.

"Thanks for the warning," Randal replied. "No, just don't be afraid of him. It works like this. Freddy Krueger's power is based almost entirely on one thing: fear."

Taylor had a puzzled look on her face. "Fear? I don't get it."

"Yeah, fear," Randal repeated. "You see, Freddy's powers are fueled by our fear. It's our fear that gives him his power. Are you familiar with lucid dreaming?"

"Yeah, that's the thing where you can control your own dreams, isn't it?"

"Exactly. There's these signs that you can look for to tell if you're asleep. Like, for example, lights: in dreams, when you turn on a light, there is a delay in the time between the switch being flipped and the light coming in because our brains process things slower when we're asleep. That's why dreams can sometimes last for years in the span of only a few hours."

"Okay, I'm following so far," Taylor nodded.

"Now most people, when they realize they're dreaming, they freak out and wake up. But lucid dreamers can realize it, and control their dreams. It's the same concept with Krueger: you know you're afraid of him. You gave him your fear, and you can take it back. If you realize it's nothing more than a dream, you can take control and force yourself to wake up."

"So I can dream myself a shotgun and blow his head off?" Taylor asked rather enthusiastically.

"Unfortunately, no," Randal said. "He's slightly more powerful than that. See, even if you take back your fear, there's always going to be somebody else out there who's still afraid of him."

Taylor nodded, finally understanding the idea. She took a sip of her coffee and looked up at Randal. "Are you afraid of him?"

Randal looked back blankly for a moment. "Yes, I am," he finally said. "All of us are. But we're not going to let Krueger realize that, or else he wins."

Taylor nodded in agreement. "Good. I don't know how I could stand it if something happened to you."

"Nothing is going to happen to me, I promise," Randal chuckled.

"Good. So why exactly are you up at five in the morning?" Taylor asked.

"Oh, right," Randal suddenly sounded surprised. "Totally forgot. Dustin, Kari, and I are going to pick up Kari's sister from the bus station."

Taylor looked surprised. "Kari? As in, Carson's little girlfriend? She has a sister?"

"Yeah, her name is Shelby," Randal said. "She's coming in from college in Illinois. We're going to pick her up, and then we're all going to go get some breakfast somewhere. Do you and Carson want to come with us?"

Taylor started to decline, but the very loud rumbling from her stomach forced her to reconsider. Randal's eyes went as wide as the dinner plates in the sink when he heard it.

"Good God, was that you?" he asked.

Taylor looked embarrassed. "Yes," she said meekly.

"How long has it been since you ate something?" Randal asked her.

"Not since... Since, I'm not sure. I think I had a bologna sandwich... two days ago." Taylor smiled at Randal innocently, who simply placed his arm around her shoulder.

"Pancakes at the diner?" he suggested.

"Read my mind," Taylor said with a smile, the first one she'd cracked in nearly two days.

_To be continued..._

_Interlude III - __10/2/15_

_Chapter 20 - 10/9/15_


	23. Interlude III

_Happy October, loyal readers! Just a quick update for all of you before we get into this week's chapter. Now normally I post a new chapter every two weeks, and this will still be the case. However, this Interlude is a special case. The Interludes serve a special purpose of fleshing out the "story before the story," and this one begins to dig into the mystery of what exactly happened in the time jump between the prologue and chapter 1. Also, I've heard from people who want more Freddy action, and here it is for you. Also this month, I will be continuing two Halloween stories that I began last year but was forced to delay, and will be starting to post chapters of Final Destination: Detailed towards the end of the month. That one will be following the bi-weekly publishing model as well, and I can't wait to get that one finished. That's all for this week; check back for next week for an all new chapter! Until then, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

_Interlude III_

_The Dead Twin_

_The news of what happened to Amy spread quickly in the days after. Nobody was one hundred percent sure what happened, because nobody was talking. Even her boyfriend Cameron was abnormally silent, and everyone just assumed she had died. It wasn't the first time someone I knew died._

_Ten years earlier, when I was six, I had a twin sister named Tory. She looked just like me, as you would expect, but there were a few differences. For one, I had a birthmark on my right hand that came up to the knuckle of my middle finger. Tory had an identifying mark, too; a small cluster of freckles on her cheek in the shape of a star. And whereas my hair was what my father jokingly called ''turd-brown,'' (much to my mother's dismay, but which I always found hilarious), Tory's hair was naturally an unnatural shade of bright red, a trait she inherited from our father, a born-and-raised Irishman who fell in love with our mother, a third-generation Vietnamese-American who was vacationing in the U.K. after high school graduation._

_Hell of a combination, right?_

_Tory and I always had a special connection, as twins usually do. For those who don't know, identical twins are created when an egg is fertilized by a sperm cell, and then divides into two separate embryos. Because of this split, twins share many identical features, such as face, eyes, etc. Their brains also develop in identical fashions, and this can also cause twins to develop identical thought patterns. Such was the case with Tory and I; we would finish each other's sentences, speak in unison, or even move in tandem with each other. Mom referred to us as lemmings; dad called us ''two halves of a whole idiot.'' _

_Anyway, a few years later, my sister and I were born. I took more after mom than I did dad, while Tori was the opposite. My dad often remarked it was quite funny to see her with her ginger hair and pale, freckled face mixed with the slanted eyes Asians are noted for. He joked that it never ''looked right.'' My dad made a lot of jokes._

_Anyway, Tory always had a lot of nightmares when she was young. My mother told me that even when we were little babies, Tory would always wake up screaming in the middle of the night while I slept on. A couple times, she woke with scratches on her arms and belly. My father brushed it off as she was scratching herself in her sleep._

_As we got older, we began talking, of course. And that was when Tory began to understand the reason she would wake up in the middle of the night, and could actually explain the thing that was keeping her awake. She told tales of this monster with a red-and-green striped body and a face that looked like a pepperoni pizza, and long sharp claws on his right hand that would sometimes cut her while she slept. He called her his princess, and told her that he would take her to a place he called the ''secret cave,'' and show her all of these beautiful things if she promised not to tell anybody about him._

_I was six years old when I learned about Freddy Krueger. Tory was six years old when Freddy Krueger killed her._

_To this day, I still get frightened when I think about the morning I woke up to find my sister's decimated corpse lying in her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals and Disney Princess bed sheets and blankets, all of it soaked in her wet blood. The blood... there was so much of it that the mattress was almost like an over-wet sponge, and Tory was actually lying in a puddle of it at the center of the bed._

_Her neck had been slashed to ribbons, and her pajamas were torn from her body, lying in bloody tatters on the floor next to the bed. Her stomach was gutted, her intestines spilled all over a stuffed Cyndaquil Pokémon that she had grown to affectionately call ''Cyd.'' She carried that stuffed toy everywhere she went, even to the bathroom. Once, when she was about four, she tried to give ''Cyd'' a haircut, and wound up cutting the felt on the toy, causing some stuffing to fall out. Mom sewed him up, so he had a dark brown ''scar'' on the side of his face. But now, that scar was covered by red blood and God knows what else._

_Of course, what would any six year old do at the sight of her sister slashed to ribbons like that? I screamed my motherfucking head off._

_My father was in the room almost before instantly. He quickly grabbed me and shielded me from Tory's body, but it was too late; I'd already seen everything. He picked me up and whisked me from the room, and everything after that was a blur. I was told later by my mother that my father carried me up to their bedroom and when my mother asked where Tory was, he didn't respond for a full minute. He just plopped me down in her lap and went back downstairs. Mom left me on the bed and followed him to our bedroom where she found Tory's body and my father on the phone with the police, having a hard enough time trying to maintain his own composure without my mother's hysterical cries and screams drowning him out._

_As tends to happen in cases like these, my father was quickly put under suspicion of Tory's murder, but was just as rapidly exonerated thanks to a closed-circuit home-security system that he had installed ages ago, which showed him asleep in bed the entire night._

_As you could imagine, I was traumatized by the ordeal. I was only six, but I knew that something was not right. My sister, my twin sister, my first friend in the whole world, the other half of my idiot. She was gone forever, and never coming back._

_I slept in my parent's bed that night. The next morning, a bunch of men I didn't know came into my room and began putting all of Tory's stuffed toys into trash bags. I watched them as they stuffed bears, blankets, and pillows into black sacks, and screamed when one man grabbed Cyd off the bed. I remember charging at him and grabbing Cyd from his hands, yelling as I ran away with tears streaming down my face. I wasn't about to let them take Cyd away!_

_My father caught me in the hallway and took Cyd out of my hands and handed it back to the man, who stuffed it into black bag with the others. I cried as they took the bags, and the bed, out to a large white van. Dad told me that these men were police, and they needed Cyd because Cyd might know something that would help them find the man who hurt Tory._

_As I grew older, I learned that this meant that they believed Tory's toys might have had some of the killer's DNA, but now I'm sure most of them knew there wouldn't have been any to find._

_Anyway, the days passed and I was finally allowed to return to my bedroom to sleep. The walls had been scrubbed with bleach, which fouled my nostrils for weeks until my dad eventually repainted it from white to an incredibly dull pink, which I'm pretty sure is still there._

_On the day of Tory's funeral, there were a bunch of people there, many of them I had never seen before, and a few of them I've never seen since. There was one woman in particular I remember, only because I would go on to become incredibly close friends with her son as I got older. The woman had strawberry-blond hair and was almost as young as my mother, maybe younger. Her son was twice my age, and looking back, it was clear he had seen some shit, even at twelve._

_The preacher finished speaking and while my mom cried inconsolably, the woman came up to me with a white sack in her hand and pulled out Cyd! I was so elated to see him again, and I knew it was him because of his ''scar.'' I held him for a moment and thought that, since it was Tory's toy, I should put it with her so it can be with her forever. I started to, but the woman explained to me that I should take care of Cyd for my sister. That it would be one of the few things I could have that would keep her with me forever._

_So I kept Cyd, but I took him up to her casket so he could say goodbye one last time. My dad then went over and talked to the woman while her son, as well as another girl his age, came over and introduced themselves to me. From that moment on, Jake, Carla, and I would be good friends._

_I shouldn't have been too surprised by the fact that just over nine months after Tory's death, my mom and dad welcomed into this world another daughter. They named her Kari. I was understandably a little jealous. My twin had just died, and now it seemed like this new child was taking her place. But my sibling jealousy was nothing compared to what would come a decade later..._

_As I grew up, I always felt like I was never alone. It was like somebody was always with me everywhere I went. When I slept, I could have sworn that Tory was sleeping right there with me. It got to the point where I had to start taking sleep aids to suppress it, but these feelings never truly went away._

_By the time Kari was nine, I was sixteen and nearing the end of my sophomore year of high school. I'd gathered quite the following of friends, including Amelia Sterling and Jacob-Daniel Johnson. I didn't really have much of a social life because I spent most of my time studying for classes and trying to get into a good college._

_One night in particular, I was alone in my bedroom and I had been studying for one particular test pretty hard. Mom had a late-night hostessing job at a fancy-schmancy restaurant, and dad had taken a job in the oilfield business, so he could be gone for weeks at a time. I was exhausted, almost passing out facedown into my school book a couple of times. In fact, I had my eyes closed when I heard this terrifying scream coming from Kari's bedroom. I snapped out of my chair, mentally paralyzed in fright. Instinct stepped in, and I was soon flying down the hallway to her room._

_''Kari!'' I screamed as I came burst through the door. ''What's wrong? What was that screaming?'' Kari was sitting upright on her bed, covers pulled up tightly over her body and around her neck._

_''I saw something, over there...'' Kari pointed towards the far side of her bedroom, where the closet was._

_''Oh, it was probably just a bad dream,'' I said, trying to comfort her._

_''No, it wasn't, Shelby! There was a little girl standing by the closet!''_

_I shook my head and sat down next to her, putting my arm around her and holding her close to me. ''You had a bad dream. Sometimes when you have a bad dream, you can still see it when you wake up.''_

_''But it wasn't!'' Kari insisted. ''She was going to come and get me, and take me to Hell! The nightmare man said so!''_

_''Nightmare man?'' I mimicked in disbelief. ''There's no such thing as a 'nightmare man.' And watch your language.''_

_''But that's what he said!'' Kari was clearly freaked out, but I couldn't stay up and babysit her all night. I had school in the morning, and so did she. And I still had homework to do, too._

_''Hold on, I'll be right back,'' I told her. I returned to my bedroom and knelt down underneath my study desk. I pulled out a metal lock box and when I unlocked it, I reached in and pulled out Cyd. I'd put him there a few years ago when I outgrew stuffed animals. I'd given the others to Kari, but I held onto Cyd for obvious reasons._

_I flipped off the light and returned to Kari's room with Cyd in my hands. I came up to Kari and sat down next to her._

_''Kari, I'd like for you to meet Cyd,'' I said. ''Cyd used to be Tory's super special guard. He slept with her every night, and he kept away the bad dreams.''_

_''Tory was our sister, right?''_

_''Yes, she was,'' I said, fighting back the tears that were welling up behind my eyes._

_''And she's in heaven, right?''_

_Oh God, who put these onions here?_

_''Yes, she is,'' I replied._

_''How did she die?''_

_I choked. Tory's decimated body flashed in front of me, on Kari's bed, and I nearly lost it._

_''In her sleep,'' I finally said as tears streamed down my face. ''But she would want you to have Cyd. He'll chase away the bad dreams for you.''_

_''Okay,'' Kari said as she took the toy from me._

_''Just promise that you take extra good care of Cyd for me, okay?''_

_Kari nodded and sunk back underneath her covers. I brushed a lock of hair out of Kari's face and started to leave the room, but decided to go over and check out the closet anyway, just to humor my younger sister. I opened the closet and flipped on the light switch. The light stayed off for a moment before finally blinking on and illuminating the closet._

_Of course, there was nothing there except a wardrobe full of little girl's clothes. So I returned to my room and sat back down at my desk, but couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't alone. Had Kari followed me back to my room?_

_Was that breathing? I stopped for a moment and listened carefully! There was definitely someone else in the room! It was like I could actually hear their silence! I turned around in my chair and saw nothing but the mirror on the wall behind me._

_I didn't have a mirror._

_There was a girl standing next to my bed, and she looked just like me. But the red hair and the freckles..._

_''Tory?!'' I screamed and fell backwards against the desk. Tory stood stiff as a board and stared at me, breathing heavily. She was dressed in pajamas similar to the ones she wore on the night she died. Blood tricked down her arms and dripped to the floor. In her right hand was Cyd, once again covered in blood._

_''Kari!"' I screamed, making a quick run for the door! I got a quick peek into the hallway and saw Kari standing at the door of her room at the other end for a brief moment before my door slammed shut in my face! I turned back to Tory, but there was someone else standing with her now!_

_He was tall, with a dirty black trench coat draped over his imposing frame. His skin... there was no skin; it was just a patchwork of blisters and burns and open wounds exposing muscle from his face down to his hands. And his hands... on his right hand there was what looked like steel blades coming from the tip of each finger. It was odd that they were metal, because they seemed to come from him organically, grown like fingernails. And his left hand was held up behind Tory's head, so I couldn't see it, but it didn't seem like he had those claws there, though._

_His face was burnt and blistered, and he looked almost like a pepperoni pizza... It was him, the man that Tory had spoken of from her dreams all those years ago._

_''How ya doing, sis?'' Tory's lips moved, but what came out was a guttural, almost unnatural voice that sounded like it could have come from the man, but his lips stayed pursed in an evil smile, baring a set of bloody, pointed teeth. ''Did ya miss me? Mom and dad sure didn't! They went off and fucked and spat out a new brat to take my place!''_

_I was too terrified to speak, so I stood there like a moron as the man grabbed Tory's chin with his clawed hand, slicing into Tory's cheek._

_''Like my new puppet?'' He laughed mockingly. ''She opens her mouth on command! And I've had a decade to break her in; all holes work just fine, if ya know what I mean...'' He gave a sadistic smile and winked at me, sending shivers of disgust creeping up my spine._

_''Who are you?'' I don't know why I asked that, it just made sense to ask it._

_''Your worst nightmare,'' he said, tossing Tory to the ground. She landed with a sickening thud, revealing a massive hole in the back of her head where this ''monster'' had been puppeteering her mouth with his hand, which was covered in blood and holding something that was dark and squishy._

_With a start, I realized what it was: it was Tory's brain!_

_I turned back to the door and began slamming on it, trying to open it! But everything I tried, the door stayed shut._

_''Oh God, open the fucking door!'' I pleaded._

_''GOD!'' A voice boomed behind me, and the claw was suddenly slammed against the door right next to my head, and I nearly fainted. I could see the glistening of fresh blood on the claw, the razor-sharp edges of the blades cutting into the wooden door as the monster dragged them down towards my shoulder._

_''No, THIS!'' the monster took a claw and placed it against my cheek. ''This is God...''_

_I felt something enter my head; there was a pain right behind my eyes that was so sharp, I was nearly blinded by it. In fact, I was blinded by it. I suddenly couldn't see anything except darkness. Suddenly, there was nothing. Just silence, and darkness._

_I couldn't tell you what happened. One minute, I was asleep in my bed, and the next minute I was being ravaged by the man who had haunted my dreams for so long. I don't remember how old I was, maybe six or seven. But I remember how he touched me, cut me, made me bleed in more ways than I care to describe. And then, he killed me._

_The last thing I saw in my final moments of life was him standing over me in the bedroom I shared with my sister Shelby, and I remember saying, or thinking, I can't remember. I think it was something like, ''Please don't hurt my sister...''_

_I never knew if he listened to me, because I died a couple seconds later._

_Dad was a devout Irish-Catholic, and had raised Shelby and myself on the concept of Heaven and Hell. He told us that when we died, the good people would be taken by Jesus to Heaven, and be with God and all the angels forever. And the bad people would go to Hell, and suffer for eternity._

_I was a good girl, so naturally I believed I would go to Heaven. But Heaven never came. I waited and waited, but I soon realized God had abandoned me. There was no God. Only Freddy Krueger._

_Don't ask me how I learned his name. Neither of my parents uttered it in any of my six years on Earth. Perhaps I heard it whispered by one of his other victims, whom I could hear screaming in the distance, frightened and dying. I didn't know where I was, just that something was terribly wrong. We shouldn't have been there, wherever ''there'' was. Perhaps this was Hell. Had I done something so bad in my life that I deserved the eternal suffering I seemed destined to endure?_

_Wherever I was, I was trapped there. For what seemed like thousands of years, I was his prisoner. As time passed, more people filled this place and soon the place was wall-to-wall-to-wall with people, his victim's souls. There was no escape; if didn't know we were already dead, I would have believed we'd all die here._

_I would have flashes of the ''real world'' on occasion. Sometimes, I could see Shelby as she slept, as she grew older and watched over our younger sister Kari, and I knew that Krueger was biding his time, waiting to add them both to his collection of souls._

_I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let that happen._

_One day, or night, I'm never sure which, Krueger appeared in the mass of souls. He knew what he was looking for: me. He found me, and took me by the throat, his claws digging into my neck._

_''Time for a family reunion,'' he growled._

_''No, don't!'' I screamed, but we vanished! The next thing I knew, I was standing in a bedroom. Not the bedroom I shared with Shelby; in fact, I wasn't sure it was the same house. I actually saw Shelby kneeling under her desk, reaching for something from a box._

_Cyd! I remembered that animal, and how I had believed he would protect me from harm while I slept. Fat lot of good it did me..._

_Shelby didn't, or couldn't, see me. She left the room and Krueger suddenly appeared behind me. I felt his sharp claw cut into the back of my head and something jammed its way into my cranium; I realized quickly that it was Krueger's hand. I could feel his burnt fingers crawling through my brain and his thumb jammed into my lower jaw, about to use me like some sadistic hand puppet! And there was nothing I could do to make him stop; I wasn't in control of any of my motor functions, or my voice, or anything!_

_Shelby returned to the room and for a while, said nothing. Suddenly, she turned and saw me; her face went ghost-white and I tried to speak, but my mouth was forced closed. I felt something soft in my hands, but couldn't look to see, but it felt familiar; it felt like Cyd, his fur wet and sticky with what I could only assume must have been blood._

_''Tory?'' Shelby asked in disbelief. She looked down at my hands and suddenly screamed for Kari. She dashed for the door, but it shut in her face! She quickly tured back to me, and my mouth began to move._

_''How ya doing, sis?'' It was alarming to have my mouth move and to feel myself speaking, but not having it be my words or voice. ''Did ya miss me? Mom and dad sure didn't! They went off and fucked and spat out a new brat to take my place!''_

_I fought to regain control of my voice, but Krueger snapped his clawed hand on my jaw and forced it closed, slicing his claws into my cheek._

_''Like my new puppet? She opens her mouth on command! And I've had a decade to break her in; all holes work just fine, if ya know what I mean...''_

_Oh Goddamn, this bastard was sick!_

_''Who are you?'' Shelby asked, her voice cracking on the verge of tears._

_''Your worst nightmare,'' Krueger responded. He jerked his hand from my head and I fell to the ground in a heap. Something tore free from my skull as I fell, and everything felt empty._

_There was a loud ruckus and I looked up to see Shelby banging on the door, Krueger close behind her._

_''Oh God, help me!''_

_''GOD!'' Krueger screamed at the top of his burnt, blackened lungs and slammed his clawed hand against the door, digging the metal talons into the wood. ''No, THIS! This is God!''_

_I don't know how I managed to do it, but I stood up. In all the time Krueger had me prisoner, I'd never had much more free will than what control I had over my own body. But for some reason, I was forcing myself to stand and move. Once I was on my feet, I was filled with rage and anger. There was a fire in my lungs, and I let out a mighty roar of anger, and I charged at Krueger!_

_I didn't have any kind of plan of attack other than attack. I don't know if he saw me coming, or if he even knew what was happening, but I went through Krueger, almost like he wasn't there, and slammed into my sister._

_There was a sudden sharp pain behind my eyeballs, which I found rather strange; I hadn't felt pain in God knows how long. Since my death, at least. Yet the pain I felt was like nothing anyone on Earth could fathom. However, it was temporary; it quickly subsided, and I found myself pressed against the door, much like Shelby had been seconds before._

_Wait, where was Shelby? Where was Krueger? What-_

_I turned around and saw Krueger standing behind me, and he actually looked terrified. He was backing away slowly, his claw raised in front of his face in a defensive posture._

_''No, you can't be!'' he screamed. ''You're one of them!''_

_I had no idea what he was talking about, but I suddenly felt the urge to look down at my body. The first thing I noticed where my hands: they weren't my hands. Instead, I was looking right at Shelby's birthmark. I suddenly realized where Shelby was: she was right here the whole time. I was somehow inside her body, like I was possessing her._

_After a few seconds, I noticed something else strange about my hands: they were glowing with a bright, pulsing white light. In fact, both of my (Shelby's?) arms were glowing._

_I don't know what came over me, but I lunged for Krueger again, aiming for his torso, but managing to grab one of his arms._

_''Gaaaaaahhhh!'' Krueger howled in pain as my hand gripped his arm tightly. I could feel his skin bubbling underneath my hand, and I knew I had the upper hand!_

_''You're done here, fucker!'' I screamed at him. But before I could do anything else, Krueger slashed at me with his claws. I instinctively jerked away, recoiling in anticipation of my potential injuries. I felt a whoosh of air pass my face, and when I turned back, Freddy had vanished._

_The fucker had managed to escape!_

_My arms stopped glowing, and I lowered them to my side. I suddenly remembered Kari, and I turned for the door and grabbed the handle-_

_I threw open the door and ran down the hallway, running into Kari's room in a bling panic!_

_''Kari!'' I started to scream, but forced myself to remain silent when I saw my sister sleeping soundly in her bed. My heart skipped a beat or two as I realized something wasn't right. I didn't know what it was or why, but it was making me sick to my stomach._

_Overcome by nausea, I rushed into the bathroom and quickly kneeled over the toilet, losing my stomach contents into the bowl. Once everything was out, I stepped up to the sink to wash my face. I splashed water on my face and looked in the mirror as I dried myself off._

_Tory was staring back at me!_

_I leapt back and screamed in terror, expecting to land in the arms of that monster again! But instead, I only hit the towel rack, sending it clattering to the floor. I stared at the mirror, at Tory, waiting for her to vanish. But she merely flashed me a wide smile and continued to stare. I was in utter disbelief at what I was seeing; it couldn't be real._

_I grabbed my hair and pulled it before my eyes, expecting to see Tory's red hair, but only saw my own turd-brown locks._

_I finally accepted what I was looking at and approached the mirror again._

_''Tory?'' I asked, placing my hand on the glass. Tory looked at my hand on the mirror and mimicked the gesture. Her smile suddenly turned into a sob, and I realized that I too as crying. ''That can't be you,'' I said. ''There's no way.''_

_''Yes, Shelby, it's me,'' she assured me. ''It's Tory!''_

_I had so many questions; they flew through my brain like a flock of birds going south for the winter. ''What...? How did you come back?''_

_Tory stared for a long while, looking rather solemn and unsure. ''I don't know,'' she replied. ''But I'm back, with you, my sister. I don't know how I'm back, but you're never going to lose me again.''_

_I wasn't understanding what she was saying. She was dead, ten years dead._

_''What are you talking about? You've been dead for ten years.''_

_''I'm in your head.''_

_Clearly, she was right. I had to be dreaming still, hallucinating, or something. This couldn't have been real at all._

_''I know you're in my head,'' I said to her. ''This isn't real, none of it. I'm going to wake up soon, and you'll be dead again.''_

_A look of confusion came over Tory's face. ''No, really, I'm actually inside your head. I don't know how I did it, but I'm somehow literally inside your mind. I can see your thoughts, all your memories of the last ten years. And you should be able to see mine, too. Watch-''_

_Something flashed in front of my eyes; I was suddenly back ten years ago, to the night that Tory died. She was lying in her bed, with the monster – Krueger – standing over her, claws bloody, slashing at her body, sending her blood spurting all over the walls. The pain was unbearable, but it quickly subsided as Tory died. Then, I was inside some sort of prison, watching through Tory's eyes as the souls of the dead began to fill the hallways, crushing against one another. I suddenly became claustrophobic, and was struggling to breathe._

_Suddenly, I was flashing back even further to events from my early childhood, reliving my old memories, but through Tory's eyes instead of my own. It flooded my head like a tidal wave, drowning my mind in memories..._

_Finally, it stopped. I stared at Tory in the mirror, and more questions floated to the surface. ''How...? How is this possible? Krueger was about to kill me. What happened?''_

_''I'm not sure exactly,'' Tory said. ''Something we did drove him off. Not forever, but it was enough to save you. I don't know if it was me, or you, or me and you together, but I know this: we have a gift now, Shelby. And I know how we can use it...''_

_It was too much for me to comprehend. I collapsed to the floor and smacked my head on the linoleum! Darkness came over me again, and this time, I welcomed it._

_When I awoke six hours later, I was in a hospital bed. My head was throbbing and my vision was a little blurry. According to the doctors, I'd had a mild seizure and may have suffered some slight head trauma, but would otherwise be alright. My family was relieved for obvious reasons, as was I just to be alive after the night I'd suffered. I didn't mention Freddy or Tory to anybody._

_The doctors were baffled as to where the seizure had come from, as there was no family history of them to speak of, and I wasn't epileptic or anything of that nature. I was kept overnight for observation, and most of my tests came back good, with an exception. When they scanned my brain for any signs of trauma, they found there were a few areas of my brain with heightened activity, specifically in the areas of the brain that process dreams._

_At first, I wasn't sure what to make of this diagnosis, but after thinking it over for a while, I remembered what Tory had said to me about some sort of ''gift.'' I remembered vaguely what she had done to Krueger on that night, and wondered if this ''gift'' was related._

_Apparently, as part of some sort of ''standard procedure,'' I was checked out by a psychologist shortly thereafter because of this whole incident, and was also diagnosed with Dissociative Personality Disorder, brought on by the seizure. I found that diagnosis to be hilarious. I mean, they were right; I had two personalities inside me now: my own, and that of my dead twin._

_There was one anomaly that nobody, not the doctors, not even my parents could explain: the sudden appearance of a set of freckles on my cheek in the shape of a star. And whenever they asked me about it, I merely shrugged it off while hiding the biggest smile you'd ever see._

_As for what I told my friends, well, I said nothing for a couple weeks. I figured there was no point in drawing attention to what happened to me, figuring it was just a one-off strange event. But then Amy was attacked, three weeks after my own incident._

_When word reached me of what had really happened to her, I knew something bigger was going on. I reached out to Jacob-Daniel, and told him what had happened to me. I told him about my sister, about Freddy, and the thing that happened to me in the nightmare. He was surprised, but not totally shocked; he actually got pretty excited when I told him Freddy was actually scared of what I had done to him, and Jake kept saying things like ''there are more'' and ''we can finally stop him for good._

_And he also said something else: something that completely caught me off guard._

_He needed my help..._

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	24. Shelby

_Hello again, guys! Sorry for the delay in the new chapters; internet issues forced the delay, but allowed me time to perfect the direction the story is heading, which I am actually very pleased with overall. And in order to compensate the delay, the next chapter will be posted next week to allow us to get back on track. We're approaching the final third of the novel now, so the end is in sight, though still a ways off. Things will be heating up over the next several chapters, so make sure you subscribe to not miss a single minute of what will surely be an explosive story! Until next time, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 20

SHELBY

December 22nd, 2014

Shelby never liked sitting at the front of the bus. Any bus. It made her uncomfortable for reasons she could never really understand. However, the back of the bus she was currently on was completely full, so she did her best to make herself comfortable and tried to rest. The last few days had been hectic, and she'd barely been able to catch more than an hour or two of sleep the entire weekend.

The bus began to slow as it rolled into Springwood, and Shelby began packing up her headphones she had been listening to music on, and gathered up the rest of her stuff. Soon, the bus came to a jerking halt and Shelby stood up into the aisle to disembark.

_Thank God, this bus was starting to smell like dirty feet._

_''How would you know what dirty feet smell like?''_ Shelby mentally replied to the voice in her head.

_I've been inside your head for two years, sis; your feet stink._

_''Shut up, Tory.''_

It was still dark outside, her watch reading five-thirty in the morning. There was more snow on the ground here than there was in Indianapolis where she went to college. In fact, it had snowed the entire bus drive down, and Shelby was sick and tired of looking at it. The depot itself was littered with Christmas decorations such as wireframe Santa Claus and reindeer, as well as a couple actual snowmen on the far side of the parking lot. The decorations were a stark contrast to the events that had unfolded over the last few days, and the funeral to be held the next day.

"Some Christmas this is turning out to be," she muttered to herself.

"Shelby!"

Shelby whirled around at the sound of her name, and saw her younger sister Kari rushing towards her with a grin wide with excitement. The young girl plowed into Shelby and threw her arms around her. Shelby instantly mirrored the gesture, nearly dropping her bags to do so.

"I missed you," the young girl said.

"I missed you, too, baby sis," Shelby said, on the verge of tears. She suddenly became aware just how tightly they were hugging, even though it had only been a few months since they'd seen each other; it had been an eventful few months.

_That's more sisterly love than you've shown her in a long time,_ Shelby heard Tory's voice say, almost like a whisper in her ear.

"Now that's more sisterly love than you've shown in a long time," Randal remarked. Shelby looked up in surprise, not expecting to see Randal standing nearby. There were two people Shelby didn't recognize; one a younger kid about Kari's age, and the other an older girl with long, blond hair who stood about a head shorter than Randal.

Shelby smiled as she walked over to Randal and hugged him tightly. "God, it's good to see you again," Shelby said.

"I know," Randal replied. "Lot of shit's gone down in the last few months. I guess you heard."

"I did. I can't' believe Cameron's..." Shelby's voice started to crack and she cleared her throat to hide it. "I heard Amy was back, too. How's she taking it?"

_You know damn well she's flipped her lid over this._

_''It's still polite to ask.''_

_I'm dead; what do I care about 'polite'?_

"Not very well," the blonde girl said. "Jake and Alice pretty much have her on a suicide watch."

"I'm not surprised. She and Cam were together a long time. It's probably harder on her than it is for most of the rest of us. I'm Shelby, by the way."

_And I'm Tory, Shelby and Kari's dead sister._

"Taylor," the girl said.

"Oh, right," a wide smile blasted across Shelby's face. "You're Randy's girlfriend. I've heard all about you."

_Isn't this the one who Jake said lives in Freddy's house._

_''I think it is,'' Shelby mentally replied. ''Don't bring that up, though. I'm not sure she knows.''_

_How am I gonna tell her, seriously?_

"I deny everything," Taylor joked. "This is Carson, my cousin. He's apparently taken a liking to your sister."

Shelby glanced over Taylor's shoulder and saw Carson and Kari standing next to a vending machine having a small argument over what to purchase.

Shelby chuckled and shook her head. "Young love. How long have they been together?"

"I'm actually not sure when it happened. It just... happened, I guess."

"The same could be said about me and you," Randal added with a smile. "Well, Shell, I imagine you're a bit hungry after that bus ride."

"I'm fucking starving," Shelby answered.

_You and me both._

_''You're always hungry.''_

_You never eat enough. You're supposed to be eating for two, remember._

_''How can I forget; she won't shut the hell up!''_

_Okay, fine. Hint taken. Taking the backseat; wake me up when you see that Dustin guy._

Tory fell silent, and Shelby breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Sometimes, it felt like arguing with Tory was like fighting for control of the body they shared. At first, they actually did fight for control of the body, which was how Shelby as originally diagnosed with SPD, but now it was like two people co-piloting a plane together. However, even the best co-pilots have disagreements with their captains.

''Let's go," Shelby finally said as they walked back to the parking lot.

The best thing about the Springwood Diner being a 24-hour joint with full-menu served all day: it never closed, so steak-and-pancakes at 6 A.M. was always a possibility. Or, in Shelby's case, grilled chicken and scrambled eggs. She hungrily scarfed down the eggs in a few bites before carving into the massive chicken breast.

"Damn, girl, slow down," Dustin said. "Food is supposed to be chewed, not inhaled."

"I said I was starving, didn't I?" Shelby responded.

"She wasn't just whistling Dixie," Taylor remarked. "I haven't eaten in two days, and I'm not _that_ hungry."

"Sorry," Shelby apologized. "I stress-eat. This whole thing with Cameron... I'm still trying to comprehend it."

"We all are," Randal said. "But we'll deal with it. I'm not sure how, but we will."

"You go ahead and do that," Taylor said. "Right now, I have to find the big girl's room." Taylor stood from the table and headed back towards the bathrooms. Once she was gone, Shelby aimed a smile at Randal.

"She certainly seems like a winner," Shelby said.

"She is," Randal nodded. "She's being real strong about this whole thing right now. Stronger than some of us have been..."

"Right," Shelby nodded. She glanced at Kari and Carson, who were chatting each other up a few tables away, not paying any attention to anyone other than themselves. "So, back to Cameron. What exactly happened?"

"We're not sure how, but Cameron managed to get a revolver, tried to snuff his own candle, after he had a fight with Amy. Dusty and I talked him out of it, and we took him to Jake's house for a little intervention. After that, Cam falls asleep on Jake's couch. Right when Carla and I are about to leave, Cam begins shaking in bed and his neck opens up right in front of us."

"Oh Jesus," Shelby gasped.

"Yeah, that's right," Randal said. "And the kicker: Taylor watched it happen. She was asleep, and she watched Freddy slit Cameron's throat."

_Jesus Christ..._

_''Shut up, Tory,''_ Shelby said in her head. "There's some things that don't make sense, though."

"Such as?" Dustin asked.

"Like why go after Cameron first? I think we can all agree that Amy isn't exactly in the best state of mind to begin with, seems like she's an easier target than Cameron."

_Maybe he's playing some kind of mind game with us. He's been known to do that before._

"Okay, that's one theory. But also, Cameron died over two days ago; why hasn't anyone else been attacked yet? And why did Freddy take so long to go after anybody in the first place?"

_Testing us, seeing who breaks next? Cam tried to kill himself; he may not have been as strong as you think._

"So he's trying to push us to our limits, see who breaks. Yeah, but why? Does he know something about us that we don't know ourselves? What's the endgame here?"

_He could be trying to draw out our fears, make himself more powerful. He seems like he's stockpiling souls for something._

"What makes you say that?"

_Because I was one of those souls, remember?_

"Shelby?"

"What!" Shelby screamed loudly, suddenly finding herself looking at Dustin, Randal, and Taylor, who were staring sharply at her. Taylor's eyes were wide with what Shelby took to be fear.

"I'm going to be outside," Taylor said, turning and heading for the door.

"You did the thing again," Randal said once Taylor had left. "The thing where you start having a conversation by yourself."

Shelby's expression dropped. She buried her face in her hands and shook her head. "Shit, I did the thing," she moaned. "Was it just me, or could you hear...?"

"Tory was talking, too," Randal nodded. "Loud and... very loud."

"Fuck. I was hoping to avoid having an episode like that."

"It happens, don't stress over it," Dustin said with a mouthful of bacon.

"I'll go find Taylor," Randal said as he left his chair.

"No, I'll go," Shelby said. "It'd be better if I explained it." Shelby stood up from the table and headed for the front door.

Taylor was leaning against the outer wall of the building when she heard the ring of the door chime. Shelby rounded the corner not long after and came up to her.

"Hey."

Taylor hesitated in her response, but eventually managed a weak, "Hi."

Shelby's face sank. "Did I freak you out back there?"

Taylor nodded. "A little bit. This whole last week has had me a bit on edge."

Shelby shook her head, "I'm sorry. I probably should have mentioned it earlier, but I have a mental disorder. Split-Personality with mild Schizophrenia. Means I have two 'voices' in my head essentially vying for control of my body."

"Sounds scary," Taylor said.

"It was when I was first diagnosed," Shelby admitted as she pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one. "See, my SPD is a little different than most cases. I wasn't born with it; I came down with it when I was sixteen, after I was attacked by Freddy."

Taylor suddenly became confused, and Shelby, seeing the look of confusion on her face, continued. "When I was six, I had a twin. Freddy killed her and took her soul hostage, for lack of a better word. She was trapped in his 'prison' for a decade. Then Freddy came after me, and Tory, my sister, managed to stop him somehow. She managed to get free, and she, I guess she possessed me or something. Anyway, she came into my body and managed to drive Freddy away. And there she's stayed for two years now."

"So your split personality is your own twin sister?" Taylor asked incredulously. "That's trippy."

"I'm in control most of the time, but she'll take control while I sleep, make me sleepwalk, sleep-eat, sleep-everything. Once, she even made me sleepwalk all the way to Dustin's house and they-"

"No way!" Taylor exclaimed.

"Yup, that totally happened. I woke up the next morning in Dustin's bed, half my clothes still on, hickey's on my boobs and neck, and sore as all hell in all the right places..." Shelby smiled wide as she took another drag from her cigarette. "I walked bowlegged for a week."

"Shit, you sister is a little slut," Taylor laughed.

"Not quite," Shelby said. "As far as I know, that's the only guy she's ever been with. Myself on the other hand, different story." Shelby paused as she took another drag from the cigarette. "I wish I could have really gotten to know her. She was killed so young, but her spirit being inside me, it's like she's aged thirteen years in the last three, and it's making me feel twice as old as I really am. I feel like I should be going through menopause even though I'm barely twenty."

"You're on an island, there," Taylor commented.

"Yeah, well, what else is new? So how long you and Randy been bumping uglies?"

Taylor raised her eyebrows at Shelby, who mirrored the expression as she extinguished the cigarette. "We actually haven't yet," Taylor said. "Six months, and we haven't fooled around, or anything, really," Taylor realized. "Kissing, holding hands, cuddling on the couch. That's it."

"You need to get on that. If Randy has half of what his cousin Dusty is packing, you're letting a God-given gift go to waste."

"Wow, that was crude," Taylor said with a forced chuckle before suddenly looking thoughtful. "I have gone through kind of a dry spell, though."

"How long? When was the last time?"

"Thanksgiving... last year." Taylor admitted, her cheeks blushing in embarrassment. "Why am I talking about this with you? We just met?"

"I have that effect on people. Making them say things they don't normally say. Helps a lot with my FBI interrogations."

Taylor burst into laughter as the diner's door opened up and Randal stepped outside to join them.

"Ladies, food's getting cold," he said.

"I'll be in soon," Shelby said.

"Food's getting cold, and I'm getting cold," Taylor said. "I'm going in now." As Taylor stood up, her foot slipped on a small patch of ice and sent her back to the ground.

"Oh, Jesus! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Taylor grumbled as Randal helped her to her feet. "The only patch of ice in the whole damn parking lot, and my fat ass finds it. Fuck me..."

"That an offer?" Randal asked jokingly.

"Funny," Taylor said deadpan, playfully slapping her hand on his cheek as she walked past him on her way in.

"I love that woman," Randal smiled.

"I can see why," Shelby said as she stood. "She's a good one, Randy. Don't let anything happen to this one, not this time."

Randal's jovial mood suddenly vanished, and he was suddenly filled with resentment and anger. "Don't talk about her like that. You know what happened; I couldn't have stopped her if I had tried. What she did, it was her choice."

"I didn't mean to speak ill of the dead," Shelby quickly corrected. "I just don't want Taylor to go through the same thing, and having the same thing that happened to Alexis happen to her, too."

"That's not going to happen this time," Randal said, fists clenched tightly. "I'll make sure of it."

...

The first thing Jake saw when he pulled up to the comic shop was a memorial table for Cameron set up by the front doors. It was quite unexpected, but Jake couldn't say he was terribly surprised. Of course, nobody had been here since Friday; hell, the only reason Jake was bothering to show up was because some of this week's new releases were going to be delivered today, and someone had to be here for them. Otherwise, he may as well have just stayed back at the motel.

The memorial table was covered with pictures and wreaths, most of which were covered in a thin blanket of snow. There were melted candles, and hand-written letters to Cameron from lots of people. At the center was a picture of Cameron with Amy, taken years ago, before all this...

"We should move it inside," Carla said. "It's all gonna get wet out here, once the snow melts."

"Good idea," Jake said as he unlocked the door. "Brush off the snow, I'll find a place for it."

Jake wound up moving the memorial just inside the door, right in front of the window where it could still be seen and accessed. The inside of the shop had a few cheap Christmas trees inside, as well as other holiday decorations, and Carla had the idea of moving some around the memorial for "aesthetic." Jake didn't give a shit; it wasn't going to bring Cameron back from the dead.

And it wasn't going to help stop Freddy from killing someone else, either.

"There we are," Carla said, standing back to admire her work. The tiny tree stood on the table, with the letters arranged underneath it like little presents.

_Presents Cameron will never get to open_, Jake noted to himself.

"Why go through the trouble?" Jake asked aloud as he counted out the drawer. "He's never going to know it's there."

"You don't know that," Carla said. "He could be watching over us right now. Looking at this table, the nice things people are saying about him."

"Did you already forget how he died? He's trapped wherever Freddy keeps his victims. He's not looking down on anything."

"Forgive me for not being Gloomy Gus about this," Carla snapped. "Is it possible for you to not be angry all the time? Or does your face hurt too much when you smile?"

To her surprise, Jake actually did smile at that. "Nice one," he said with a chuckle. "I'm just having an issue digesting it, why people do things like that."

"Well they say funerals aren't for the dead; they're for the living," Carla reached into her purse and pulled out a photo of her own. This one featured Jake, Carla, Randal, Dustin, Cameron, Amy, Shelby, and Alexis, as well as Alice and Mrs. Webber, the principal. They were all standing in front of the Springwood High School sign, with a banner reading "Congratulations, Class of 2008."

Jake and Carla were both front and center, wearing graduation gowns, and holding their diplomas. Jake had his arm around Cameron's neck, like a big brother picking his little brother. Carla had her arm around Amy, who was leaning against her, head barely reaching her chest.

"Holy shit, where did you dig up that fossil?" Jake asked excitedly. He came over to Carla, who set the photo inside the tree. "That was our graduation photo!"

"No shit, Sherlock," Carla smiled.

"My mom lost her copy years ago. I didn't know you had one."

"Mrs. Webber had the negative. Her husband Jessie took the photo, remember? It's going to be in Cameron's funeral slideshow."

"Jesus, how much he looks like me," Jake noted. Indeed, they both had the same hairstyles.

"He looked up to you a lot," Carla said. "I think for a while, he actually wanted to be you."

"He wouldn't want to be me," Jake added. "Not with what I've gone through. I can't believe how young we all are."

"We grew up. All of us did," Carla looked at the photo, and locked eyes on Alexis, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was standing off to the side by Mrs. Webber, looking so innocent and sweet. "Well, most of us did, anyway..."

Jake felt Carla's freezing cold hand slip into his, and he gripped it tightly.

"Jake, can you make me a promise?" Carla asked as she turned to look at him. Her eyes were shimmery and her cheeks were puffy, as if she were about to cry. "That nobody else is going to die because of this?"

Jake's face sank, and he looked back at the photo in the tree. Should he lie? She knew the truth just as well as he did, so there was no point in it.

"No, I can't promise that, and you know I can't," Jake began. "But I can promise that I will do everything I can to stop him, whatever it costs me." He took his hand and placed it on Carla's cheek, and gently turned her to face him. "I will not let him hurt you..."

Tears dropped from Carla's eyes, and she began crying into Jake's shoulders as the sun outside shone down on the freshly fallen snow.

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	25. Not Alone

_Hey, brief update this week. This chapter runs a bit shorter than the others because the schedule has been hectic this week; had some personal issues to work out. I wasn't able to put everything I wanted into the chapter due to time constraints, but when the next chapter gets posted in two weeks, this chapter will be updated with additional material, so check back then. I also hope to have some other exciting, non-Elm Street stuff posted over Halloween next week. So whatever you do, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 21

NOT ALONE

The sun was out, but the snow hadn't melted a lot by the time the group made it to the comic shop. As the SUV pulled up to the shop, Jake was in the window switching on the "OPEN" sign. He noticed the Explorer pulling in and stepped outside. Moments later, Shelby excitedly exited the van.

"Jake!" She threw her arms around him and nearly tackled him into the snow.

"Good to see you, Shell," Jake said. "Carla's inside." Shelby nodded eagerly and hustled in out of the cold, Taylor coming in right behind her.

I need a quick word with you two before we go in," Jake said to Randy and Dustin. "I just spoke with my mom, and Ms. Miller wants the three of us to help carry Cameron's casket tomorrow. Carla, too."

"Of course," Dustin said immediately.

"No question, done," Randal agreed.

Jake nodded, "Awesome. And, there's a few things I wanted to say before the funeral. After everything that's happened, I feel like we need to clear the air with certain people about certain things."

"Shit, Jake, you really want to do this now? The day before Cameron's funeral?" Randal asked in disbelief.

"I feel like there are things that Taylor still needs to know about our situation. I think she may be able to help us."

"We can do that tomorrow, after we're done with everything," Randal interjected. "We've got enough going on already without dragging the Freddy situation back into it. Let's not sully the mood any more than circumstances already have. It can wait one more day."

Jake contemplated the words for a moment, letting them sink in. With a heavy sigh, he agreed. "Alright, fine. But right after Cameron's funeral, we're telling her everything."

Dustin looked slightly confused. "Everything?" he parroted. "You mean, _everything,_ right? About who we really are, and what we can do?"

"Everything," Jake repeated. "Beginning to end. No more secrets. We're going to need all the help we can get when we face off against Freddy again. And I'd bet everything I have that's going to be sooner, rather than later..."

...

December 23rd, 2014

It was still dark outside even though Dustin's alarm clock was ringing 8 A.M. He was normally reluctant to get up on an average day, but getting out of bed this morning meant he would be forced to face the reality of the fact that Cameron was going to be buried today.

Dustin had laid out his clothes the night before, as he normally did, being the neat-freak he was, as opposed to his cousin, who was a bit more unruly when it came to the day-to-day. The funeral was at eleven, but Dustin and Randal had planned on being there by ten, so Dustin had two hours alone to prepare himself, mentally and physically, for the day ahead.

Well, not exactly alone. Shelby was lying half naked on the bed next to him, rolling over gently as Dustin moved to get up

"Morning," Dustin said as he stood up. Shelby opened her eyes and quickly sat up in the bed, looking at her surroundings, trying to reconcile the previous night's events.

"What the hell...?" Shelby groaned, still half out of it. She stood and started to wobble, feeling weak in her legs, falling back onto the bed. "Oh Jesus... My insides feel like mush!"

"All night fuck-a-thons will do that to a woman," Dustin chuckled as he grabbed a pair of lounge pants and a shirt.

"Especially with that thing," Shelby said as she eyed Dustin's goods.

Dustin looked down as well and smiled. "I must have done something really right in a past life to earn this. Good karma, or something."

Shelby smiled and shook her head. "You're hilarious."

"I try to be," Dustin said. "Times like this, people got to remember to stay positive, and not be Debbie Downers all the time."

"I guess so," Shelby said, suddenly sounding downbeat. "I'm just worried about Amy. She can't be handling this well at all."

"Me too," Dustin said. "This has to be rougher on her than almost anyone else. After the ordeal with her parents, there weren't many people she really trusted, and Cameron was one of them."

"What do you think happened to them?" Shelby wondered aloud. "I have a hard time believing they just abandoned their daughter like that. How alone she must feel?"

"It happens. Some people, when the shit hits the fans, they GTFO instead of sticking it out..." Dustin said. He walked back over to the bed and fell backwards across Shelby's lap.

"I know," Shelby said, stroking the hair from Dustin's forehead. "People like that are scumbags."

"She's not alone, though. All of us, we're her family, too. Not blood, but family still. Considering everything we've gone through together, that's huge." Dustin sighed heavily. "Do you think she knows that?"

"She knows," Shelby affirmed. "No matter how bad it gets, she knows we're all here for her."

"I hope she makes it to the funeral today. Speaking of, we need to get ourselves ready. Gotta be there by ten." Dustin shook his head. "This day is gonna suck."

_To be continued..._

_11/6/15_


	26. Hallowed, Be Thy Name

CHAPTER 22

HALLOWED, BE THY NAME

Taylor hadn't been to a funeral in years. Her parents didn't even have one, so it was something of a surreal experience for her. She'd seen bodies before, but there was always something... unnerving about seeing one, especially one that you were so close to when they were alive.

They say that when a person dies, it looks like they're sleeping. Taylor, however, didn't believe that. And looking at Cameron, she had no reason to. All the color was drained from his face, and his hair was styled in a manner that seemed unnatural to Taylor, at least when compared to how Cameron normally wore his hair. Whatever it was that made him Cameron, it was gone.

The church was empty, for the most part. Alice was there, of course, off in a side room somewhere with Cameron's mom, trying her best to console her. Jake and Carla were around, too, though she wasn't sure exactly where. Randal was around, though. He was standing in an alcove just a short distance away from the casket, which was surrounded by so many wreaths, bouquets, and other floral arrangements that you would have been forgiven for mistaking the church for a greenhouse.

"I never understood funerals," Randal said.

"Why not?"

"They're for the living, not the dead," Randal continued. "I've been to plenty of these things, and I can promise you: none of them care about the floral arrangements, the songs, and the moving tributes, none of it matters once you're dead."

"It's peace of mind for the living," Taylor added. "It's our way of coping, and moving on, accepting what's happened."

"Yeah, I know. But when I die, I don't want some big, elaborate service like this. Just set me on fire, stick me in a jar, and throw me in the lake."

"That can be arranged," Taylor said with a chuckle. She walked where Randal was standing and leaned on him as he continued.

"If I have to have a big fancy funeral, I want a Viking funeral. I want to be stuck in a wooden boat, lit on fire, and sent down the Ohio River. That's a hell of a way to be sent to the other side."

"You are such a dork," Taylor rolled her eyes.

"And yet, you're still my girlfriend," Randal said smiling.

"Maybe I'm just as big a dork as you," Taylor replied. She wrapped her arms around his body and rested her head on his chest.

Footsteps echoed behind them as Jake came up to them, dressed in a suit not too dissimilar from Randal's, though Jake's was solid black while Randal's was a few shades of gray lighter. Taylor did take notice that they both wore the same ties: a brightly colored one with video game controllers silhouetted on them. An odd choice of tie for a funeral, Taylor noted.

"Taylor, Becky needs a favor from you."

"Who?" Taylor asked.

"Cameron's mom," Randal said to her.

"We're short one pallbearer, and I thought we'd ask you first."

"Of course, I will," Taylor responded instantly.

"Both of you follow me," Jake said. Taylor and Randal followed Jake through the hallway to a small library where Carla, Dustin, and a much older man that Taylor didn't recognize, were all sitting around a table, having a laugh about something. Taylor noticed that Dustin was wearing a tie just like Randy and Jake's.

The older man was probably around seventy or so, with hair that was short and gray, and a small, scratchy beard. He was tall, as well, his knees seemingly coming up to his armpits as he sat in the chair that was clearly too small for him. As they got closer, Taylor heard the old man speaking.

"And when he was almost two, that's when he started throwing temper tantrums, as children that age are often want to do. But Cameron's were different. We found out during a Thanksgiving dinner, right before he turned two. He wanted pumpkin pie, and his mom wouldn't let him have any because he hadn't finished his food. He had turkey, mashed 'taters, cranberry sauce, the works. But he hadn't eaten any of it, and he wanted his pie. Well, Becky wouldn't let him have it until he ate his food. So Cameron gets out of the chair, walks about three feet, and falls flat on his back on the floor, and lies there, silent. And Becky doesn't pay him a lick of attention."

The others began laughing as the old man continued.

"Finally, after about five minutes, my wife finally asks, 'What's he doing?' And Becky responds with, 'Oh, he's throwing a tantrum,' as if it was an everyday occurrence. Now, the tantrums I'm familiar with, the ones my daughter gave when she was that age, involved yelling, screaming, breaking shit, whole nine yards. And yet, here her son lies, in complete silence, stiff as a board, and she's calling it a tantrum. Let me tell you, I'm seventy years old, and in all my years, I've never seen anything like that before or since."

Taylor couldn't help but chuckle at the old man's story. She also took notice of the fact that everyone was smiling and laughing, as if at a stand-up comedian.

"I tell you, Cameron was always something else," the old man said. He suddenly became somber as he continued. "I always thought he and his mom would be the ones to bury me, not the other way around. It's hard enough having to bury your child, but your grandchild? That's not fucking right..."

The man sounded like he was on the brink of tears, but he quickly brushed them away and looked up at Taylor and Randal. "I didn't realize I'd attracted an audience," he said with a chuckle. He stood from the chair, and Taylor suddenly realized how tall he was, as patted Jake on the shoulder.

"How you doing, kid?"

Jake responded by putting his own hand on top of the man's hand.

"And I recognize this slimeball," the man said to Randal, who turned a deep shade of crimson at the kind words. "But not this one," Wes said as he eyed Taylor. "I'm Wes, Cameron's grandfather."

"Taylor."

"Glad to meet you, just not under the circumstances," Wes said. "So, have you been a pallbearer before?"

Taylor shook her head. "So what's going to happen, then, is the family and close family friends go in first. That's going to be my daughter Becky, myself, and Alice.

"Then you'll come in with the pallbearers, who will come in right after the family. This means you five..." he pointed to the others in the room, "...will follow us in. Then the rest of the family fills in behind them. You'll sit in the front row in the pew closest to the casket. When the service is over, we'll all stand up, go over to the casket, the funeral director will close it, and we'll all wheel it out to the hearse. We'll go to the cemetery, and we'll then carry the casket to the graveside. Understand?"

Taylor nodded.

"Good."

The door opened behind them and Alice stepped inside. "Guys, we're about ready to go in."

"Alright," Wes said. "Let's go get this over with."

The group filed out of the room and into the hallway. Taylor could see Alice and Amelia near the front with Becky, who was already crying loudly. Taylor suddenly felt her stomach give way, like she was going to be sick. She felt Randal's hand close around hers, and any uneasiness she had felt vanished instantly.

"Just keep your head high," Randal whispered.

Taylor nodded, and then looked down at the tie. "What's up with the tie?" she whispered.

"It was the only tie Cameron had, so it's the one he's being buried in. All the guys are wearing one just like it to honor him."

Taylor was about to respond, but the door opened up and the line began moving forward into the church hall. As Taylor went inside, she heard a soft, melodic song playing over the speakers, which she instantly recognized.

"Is this Coheed and Cambria?"

Randal nodded. "Cameron loved this band, and 'Wake Up' is his favorite song. He's got C&amp;C stuff all over his room, and he had hard drives loaded with Armory Wars fan-fiction."

Taylor frowned and looked down at the floor. "I was a real shitty friend, then. I had no idea he loved this band. In fact, I didn't know diddly squat about him, apparently."

"Don't talk like that," Randal replied. "You were an awesome friend. Trust me, there are things you don't know about most of us, just as there are things about you that I don't know, and you probably won't tell anyone. Everyone has secrets."

The pair sat down on the bench with the other pallbearers. Taylor looked over at Alice and Amy, who were sitting on the opposite side of Becky and Wes, who was embracing his daughter tightly. Becky was blubbering so badly that it seemed like she wasn't registering her father's presence.

A man walked up to the podium once everybody was seated. His hair was long and he had a stubby goatee that came down his chin. His face was adorned with a pair of circle-lens glasses and he looked like he had recently drowned in a tub of rum, as his face had a look of perma-drunk.

"Good morning, everyone. My name is Jonathan Lantz, and I'm the youth pastor at First Baptist here in Springwood."

The man took a deep breath before continuing, "First off, I wanted, on behalf of the family of Cameron Miller, to thank everyone who came out this morning. I know it's the holidays, which are supposed to be a time of joy and happiness, not sorrow and mourning. So, let's not be sorrowful and mournful. Instead, let's use this time to celebrate a young life, despite it being one that passed too soon."

Lantz gestured to the casket, which now closed and had a framed school photo of Cameron lying on it. Taylor found that a little strange; she could have sworn it was open just a few minutes ago.

"Cameron and his family began going to our church when little Cameron was only a year or so old. His father was still with us at the time, and I'd never seen a family so happy..."

The service went by in a blur. The pastor finished his memorial speech, and some girl had gone up to perform a song with a pianist. Someone else spoke, whom Taylor didn't recognize, and then came the slideshow. Taylor watched as photos of Cameron went up one after the other, starting with him shortly after his birth in Becky's arms, and going through high school. There were also several of Cameron and Amy that were clearly taken years ago since Amy still had both eyes; Taylor heard Amy sob every time one came up.

The last picture they showed was one that Taylor didn't even remember taking. It was of all of them sitting on the back porch of Jake's house during their Halloween barbeque. Cameron and Amy were cuddled close together, about to kiss while Taylor was about to shove a roll into Randal's face. Dustin and Jake were stuffing their own faces while Carla looked at all of them with a disapproving look. Alice was nowhere to be seen, so she was presumably behind the camera.

Taylor and Randal laughed to themselves when they saw the picture.

"Do you remember taking that?" Randal asked.

"No," Taylor chuckled.

The slideshow ended and Lantz returned to the podium.

"I'd like to say a small prayer before we head out to the graveside service. If you will all bow your heads and pray with me. Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name..."

Taylor bowed her head, but the voice of the pastor, as well as all other sounds from the room, were soon drowned out by a strange, familiar melody. She looked around the room, but couldn't place the music or its source.

"Randy, can you hear that?" Taylor nudged her boyfriend, who didn't respond or move in the slightest way.

Another sound joined the music: loud crying. Taylor looked down the row and saw Becky still crying loudly, but everything else in the room was muted.

A chill went up Taylor's back as she suddenly recognized the music. It was a song every child knew.

"...Pop goes the weasel," Taylor whispered to herself. A dreadful thought formed in her head as the music looped again, playing incrementally slower each time. Somewhere, a little girl began singing in time with the music.

"All around the mulberry bush... the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey... thought... 'twas all in fun..."

Taylor forced herself to look back at the casket as the music slowed to a stop, and everything became silent again. The only thing she could hear was her own breathing. Or was it her breathing? Was it coming from the casket? From someone else in the room. Who was-

"POP GOES THE WEASEL!" Freddy Krueger screamed into Taylor's ear as the casket lid burst off and Cameron leaped out and landed on the floor. Krueger quickly covered Taylor's mouth with his hand and raised the blades to her eye-level.

"I always loved funerals. But the thing is, they're more about the living than the dead," Krueger breathed into Taylor's ear. "Let's change that."

Taylor looked back at Cameron, who now had a glove similar to Krueger's on his right hand. Cameron looked at Taylor and gave an evil smile as he walked over to where his mother sat.

Taylor tried to leap out of her seat, but found she couldn't move her arms or legs. She looked down and saw they were held in place by rusty metal braces; Taylor could do nothing but watch as Cameron stood over his weeping mother and traced the blades across her face, neck, chest...

How can nobody else see this? Taylor asked herself. A look around the room answered her question; everyone in the room, including Randal, had had their eyes stabbed out, blood dripping from the black holes like tears. But none of them appeared phased by it as they continued praying in unison.

"Thy Kingdom Come, thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bed, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us..."

"Deliver us from Evil," Cameron said, Krueger's voice coming from his mouth.

"Cameron, don't!" Taylor screamed, but it was too late. Cameron threw the blades into his mother's chest, dragging them down her torso and spilling her insides on the church floor...

...

Randal looked up when he heard heavy breathing from nearby. Taylor had vanished, and Randal looked down the row at Alice and Becky, and saw Becky doubled over, clutching her stomach. As he watched, Becky collapsed to the floor and lay still. A scream came up, likely from Amy, and Randal looked at Jake. They both jumped from their seats and rushed over to Becky's side. Alice was kneeling over her, trying to get Becky to respond.

"Becky, can you hear me?" Alice asked loudly.

"What happened?" Randal asked aloud.

"I'm... not... sure. She... just... collapsed..." Amy gasped between sobs. Jake looked up at the pew where they had been sitting and noticed Taylor was gone.

"Where's Taylor?" he asked Randal.

"I don't know," Randal gasped, hopelessly confused. "I heard Amy scream, and when I looked up, Taylor was gone."

"Find her!" Jake screamed.

Randal didn't need to be told twice; he immediately turned and ran for the door, forcing his way past the massive throng of screaming mourners. For all he knew, Taylor could be in trouble.

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	27. Something Stupid

CHAPTER 23

SOMETHING STUPID

Randal burst through the front doors of the church and ran around the side of the building to the parking lot where Alice's silver Escalade sat. He yanked open the backdoor and pulled out a drawstring bag, dropping it on the trunk and digging through it.

"Come on, where the hell are they?" he muttered to himself. "Did I pack them-?

"Randy!" Randal looked up to see Shelby hustling across the lot. "What's going on? What happened to Becky?"

"I don't know, but Taylor is missing!" Randal screamed, clearly freaking out. "I think Freddy somehow got her, and may have attacked Becky, too! And I can't find my goddamned sleeping pills!"

"You're not serious? Going in after her?"

"She can't defend herself against him, she doesn't know what he can do. Not like we do, and she's going to get killed if I don't-" Randal continued on breathlessly before finally becoming winded and slamming exhaustedly against the vehicle, sliding down to the pavement.

"Randal, take a minute to breathe," Shelby commanded. "Taylor has to be here somewhere. She didn't just disappear into thin air; not even Freddy can do that."

Randal looked up at her, eyes wide as he came up with a plan. "You have to lay me out."

Shelby suddenly became confused. "What? No, I'm not-"

"Punch me in the face, right now. Knock me out!"

"Randal, calm down," Shelby said, placing her hands on his shoulders and leaning down to make herself face-to-face. "Take a moment for your brain to catch up with what you're saying-"

Randal, in fact, did no such thing. Instead, he cut off Shelby's words by jumping forward as she was leaning down and knocked his forehead against hers with all the force he could muster. Their heads met with a loud CRACK and Shelby stumbled backwards in pain as Randal bounced back against the car, hitting his head again on the door with another dull thud. By the time he slid back down to the pavement again, he was out cold.

...

By the time Randal opened his eyes again, the sky had grown dark. Randal stood up and looked around the lot. The cars were still there, but they were all burnt-out shells, paint scorched away and blackened, tires and seats melted. Upon closer inspection, Randal noticed charred skeletons sitting in the seats of many cars.

"Holy shit..." he breathed.

The church still loomed over the lot, but the gothic architecture was a lot more intimidating against the night sky. Lights shone brightly through the stained glass windows, and there was pipe organ music playing from within, a hauntingly familiar tune. Though there were no words, Randal heard them in his head.

_One, two, Freddy's coming for you..._

_Three, four, better lock your door..._

_Five, six, grab your crucifix..._

_Seven, eight, gonna stay awake..._

_Nine, ten, never sleep again..._

The doors of the church opened up on their own and Randal felt his heart jump inside his chest, much like it did every time he entered the Dreamscape before. He knew the rules of this world, and he knew how to bend them to his own means, but that never stopped the lump in his throat from forming every time.

Randal closed his eyes and steadied his breathing so he could concentrate. He felt his hands growing warmer and warmer, until he finally felt fire licking his wrists and forearms. He looked down with a smile and saw exactly what he had hoped: his hands were, in fact, on fire. The light yellow flames danced in his palms and across the back of his hands.

Randal snapped his fingers and a jet of flame shot out with a WHOOSH from where the fingers met his thumb. He then formed a ball of fire in one hand, tossed it up into the air like a baseball and caught it with his other hand, where it then dissipated like a drop of water landing on a surface.

"Still got it," Randal said. It had been a while since he had had to use his ability, so he initially feared he might have been out of practice, which wouldn't have helped anybody. Fortunately, that was not the case. Without another word, Randal ran into the church, the massive wooden doors closing behind him.

...

"I just got off the phone with 911. An ambulance is on the way," Jake said as he, Dustin, and Carla all walked out the door of the church and down the stone steps to the sidewalk where Shelby was standing, cradling her forehead. Jake was the first to take notice of Shelby.

"Jesus, what happened to you?" he asked.

"Fucking Randal flipped out and headbutted me."

"Why?"

"He couldn't find his sleeping pills."

Jake face dropped, his mind jumping to the only logical conclusion. "He went in? Are you fucking serious? Where is he?"

"I stuck him in your mom's Escalade. He thinks Freddy may have Taylor."

"Okay," Jake said, trying to contemplate the next move. "Okay, Taylor has to be somewhere in the church. Dustin and I are going to try to find her. Carla, you stay here and wait for Becky's ambulance. And both of you, keep an eye on Randal. If anything happens, wake him up!" Without another word, both he and Dustin hustled back up the steps into the church.

The first thing that Randal noticed about the church was the fact that it was completely dark inside, despite having seen the lights coming through the windows earlier. He raised his hand and built up a ball of flame that was just bright enough to illuminate the hall around him, and not blind him.

It was a lot colder now inside, and he would have been freezing were it not for his arms literally being on fire. And it was deathly silent, too.

_He's got to be here somewhere,_ Randal thought. _I'm essentially offering myself up as easy pickings, so he's got to bite._

"Hello?" he called out. There was nothing except the echo reverberating off the walls, and even the echo seemed somewhat muted. Randal then noticed that the hallway itself seemed to be impossibly long. How long had he been walking? Now that he thought about it, he'd had to have gone at least three times the length of the church, and there seemed to be something of a downward slope as well.

"Where the hell are you leading me, Mr. KFC?"

A sound suddenly filled the air around him, a screech of metal scraping against what could have been glass. The sound seemed distant, but at the same time it was all around him. Chills went up and down Randal's back; Krueger was close.

"Keep it together, Randy," he told himself, hearing only the sound of his own breath. "It's just scare tactics. He has no power over you."

"I beg to differ..."

The whispered words hit Randal's ear, and he reflexively turned and launched a fireball behind him, though it hit nothing but empty air, travelling back down the hall away from him before dissipating several yards away.

"What the hell?" Randal could still feel Krueger's hot, sticky breath on his neck, and it made him feel vastly uncomfortable. But his courage was not shaken, not in the least. "Come on out, you pussy!" Randal screamed loudly. "I'm not afraid of you!"

There was nothing but silence, not even his own breathing, and it set Randal even further on edge. "I'm not scared of you, and you know it! That's why you haven't killed me yet! YOU! HAVE! NO! POWER! OVER! ME!" Randal slammed his fist against the wall, sending a swath of flames down the corridor. When his taunts were met with more silence, Randal smiled to himself.

"That's what I thought," he chuckled. "I'm not afraid of you. You're afraid of me..."

...

"Deliver us from Evil," Cameron said, Krueger's voice coming from his mouth.

"Cameron, don't!" Taylor screamed, but it was too late. Cameron threw the blades into his mother's chest, dragging them down her torso and spilling her insides on the church floor.

Taylor watched in horror as Becky collapsed to the floor. Cameron withdrew his hand from his mother's belly, placing the blade on his tongue and drawing it down as if licking the blood from the steel. Taylor squirmed in her own skin as the blade dug into Cameron's tongue, bifurcating it right down the middle.

"Tasty," he murmured as he walked back to the casket. He drew the blades across the aluminum sides and an unholy screech filled the air. Four long scratches were left on the side of the casket, which started to bleed profusely.

"What the hell?" Taylor screamed, fidgeting to free herself from the bonds that held her to the chair.

There was a thud near her and Taylor looked over to see Becky collapsed on the floor, bleeding out like a stuck animal.

"Why would you do that?" Taylor asked. "That was your mother!"

"Not my mother..." Cameron said, still in Krueger's voice, leaning against the bleeding casket. Cameron nodded up at the wall behind the pews. Taylor craned her neck around to look, and gasped in shock.

On the wall was a massive crucifix, occupied not by Jesus, but by a middle-aged woman, hands and feet nailed to the cross, bloody wounds crisscrossing her body, blood dripping down the wood. She was completely naked save for a white nun's habit on her head, which was stained deep crimson.

Taylor looked back at Cameron, who was back in the open casket and Freddy standing where Cameron was, picking his dirty fingernails clean with the blade.

"Mommy!" Freddy yelled, to which the woman on the cross merely whimpered. "I'd like you to meet my new favorite whore, Taylor! Isn't she to kill for?" Freddy grabbed Taylor's chin and forced her head around to look at the woman again.

"Stop, please," Taylor whimpered. "Just let me go..."

"Go?" Freddy mocked. "GO? We haven't even started our little game!"

Taylor leaned as far away from Krueger as she could, hesitant ask her question. "What game?"

Krueger smiled and leaned in, until he was almost nose-to-nose with Taylor. "The game where I rip your boyfriend's guts out of his still-breathing body and feed them to you while I split you in two..."

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	28. Turn Up the Heat

CHAPTER 24

TURN UP THE HEAT

Jake came out of the library and saw Dustin walking down the hallway towards him from the rec room.

"Any sign of her?" Jake asked.

"No, but I think the paramedics are here. I saw the lights flashing outside."

"Shit," Jake swore. "Well Taylor's got to be here somewhere. Even if she fell asleep and Freddy took her, her physical body has to be here somewhere. Freddy's not that powerful."

"So we'd like to think," Dustin argued. "It's been over two years, so who knows what kind of tricks he's got up those ugly Christmas sweater sleeves of his." Jake was about to respond, but a loud clanging and a sudden chill distracted him. He turned around to see two paramedics coming in through the doors, the gurney squeaking loudly as they rolled it in.

"The paramedics are here," Jake noted.

"So what do we do?" Dustin asked. Jake shook his head and remained silent. For the first time in a long time, he didn't know what to do.

...

Randal could hear voices as he continued walking down the hallway. They were still distant, but he heard what they were saying clear as day.

"Stop, please. Just let me go..."

"Go? GO?" Randal flinched. He recognized Krueger's shout as easily as if it were his own. "We haven't even started our little game!"

The hairs on the back of his neck stood stiff and a chill went through his entire body.

"Taylor!" he gasped. Randal broke into a dead run, his heart thumping madly as he sprinted down the hall, his mind racing with the worst possible outcome. What if he didn't make it in time? What if Krueger got impatient and gutted her right then? What if he made it there only to watch Krueger spoon feed Taylor her own intestines?

These thoughts only made Randal run faster, the flames on his hands leaving fire trails behind him as he moved. Soon, he saw a small light at the end of the hall, a thin sliver like one sees between a set of double doors. Randal pushed harder and flung himself through the doors.

Blinding light flooded his vision and he brought his hands to his face to shield his eyes. Thrown off balance by the doors, Randal stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance. He lowered his eyes and saw himself back in the main room of the church, but everything was different.

The mourners were charred skeletons and the casket with Cameron's body was open, revealing Cameron's burnt, open-wound infested face.

"What game?" Taylor's shaky voice called out from the front of the room. Randal spotted her, Freddy standing over her with his bladed hand dripping with blood. He broke into a run as Freddy grabbed Taylor by the face.

"The game where I rip your boyfriend's guts out of his still-breathing body and feed them to you while I split you in two..."

Randal came up to the front row of pews and, without any hesitation, hurled a fireball straight at Freddy. The fireball slapped Freddy's face and enveloped his whole head, knocking him over like a bowling pin. Freddy howled in agony as the flames caught his sweater on fire and licked the rest of his body. The stench of burning cotton and flesh filled the church as Krueger burnt at Taylor's feet.

"Randal!" she screamed.

"Don't worry, babe, I'm here to get you out of here." Randal knelt beside Taylor and held his hand to her restraints. "This may get a little warm," he warned.

Taylor felt her restraints becoming very hot, almost burning her. Soon, they were glowing red hot and Randal easily pulled them off and tossed them aside.

"Come on, let's GTFO!" Randal pulled Taylor out of the seat and into the aisle. Randal bumped against something and stumbled backwards just as Taylor screamed.

Freddy Krueger stood before them, freshly charred with tiny embers burning in the cracks of his face and torso, fire literally raging within his body. His eyes were flickering yellow and red, and his glove had burnt away, leaving only the metal plate and fingers, which had fused to his hand.

Freddy flashed them a dirty smile, his teeth black and bloody. He reached out and grabbed Randal by the throat, bring his face right next to him.

"Going so soon? We were just about to turn up the heat..."

"Taylor, get behind me!" Randal shouted, reaching back for his girlfriend, only for his hand to strike nothing but air. Randal turned to look, but Taylor was gone.

"What did you do with her, you bastard?" Randal screamed, but was cut off by Freddy's clawed hand gripping his throat, the red hot blades cutting into and burning his neck.

"Looks like your bitch left you to die alone," Freddy taunted.

Randal tried to speak, but the white hot pain in his neck made it rather difficult.

"What's wrong? Freddy got your tongue? AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

...

When Taylor opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a street light looming overhead, shining brightly in the dark of the night. She felt cold against her back and realized she was lying down on concrete or something. She lifted her head realized it was not concrete, but snow. On somebody's lawn.

Taylor sat up and looked around, shivering in the cold. The street around her was unfamiliar, none of the houses she recognized. She stood up fully and walked down to the street corner where the street sign was. In white letters on green back, clear as day, it read:

"Elm Street? That can't be right..." Confused, Taylor began walking down the street. The numbers were correct: 1401, 1408, 1421...

She stopped when she reached 1428. She was more confused than she had been before; it looked nothing like her house.

"What the hell?" Against her better judgment, Taylor walked up to the strange house. She placed her key in the lock and, strangely, it worked. She turned the key and opened up the door.

When she stepped inside the house, the inside was nearly identical to her own. She took in her surroundings and, as she turned back to the door, noted a large mirror next to it. And a woman standing in the doorway, closing the door behind her as she entered. The moment she did, she never took her eyes off of Taylor.

The woman was golden-haired and curvy, not unlike Taylor. She reminded Taylor of her mother, as the similarities were rather striking. But it clearly wasn't her mother, despite the similarities. Yet, there was something hauntingly familiar about the woman...

The woman was carrying a purse in the crook of her arm, and she bent over to set it down. Taylor followed her with her eyes as she did so, trying to place why the woman was so familiar.

The woman stood back up directly in front of the mirror and stared directly at Taylor. Suddenly, Taylor realized why she recognized the woman: it wasn't her mother; it was her-

The mirror behind her exploded in a shower of glass and a hand reached out from the reflection! Four silver blades pierced through the older Taylor's head, two exploding through her eye sockets, showering the younger Taylor in blood and eye juice!

The older Taylor opened her mouth to scream, but the only sound came from the younger Taylor, who screamed loudly as the shadowy figure in the mirror reached out and pulled the older Taylor through the air and into the mirror with him. The glass, which had splintered and showered all over the room, began to rush back to the mirror, reforming itself in the frame.

When the glass was back in the frame, the cracks remained, and only when she stopped screaming did Taylor notice that blood was dripping through the cracks in steady streams. And a figure was staring back at her.

The shadowy figure lurked in the corner of the mirror, his face scarred and burnt, a wicked smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

Taylor knew that face, that smile.

Freddy Krueger.

But he wasn't there long; with a knowing wink, he vanished.

Taylor stood mortified. This wasn't the Freddy Krueger she knew; this one was different. This one... she couldn't describe it. This one didn't feel like something out of a nightmare. This one felt... real. This one felt like... evil.

Taylor stumbled backwards in shock, backing against the railing. She stumbled to the ground and, as she stared at the mirror, blood pooling underneath it, she screamed in terror!

_Proceed to next chapter..._


	29. The Night That Freddy Krueger Died

_Welcome back, loyal readers! We're finally moving into the endgame, after a year of waiting! This chapter was a little delayed, but it should be worth the wait (note: the new Star Wars came out, which didn't help get this chapter out any faster). If all goes according to plan, I may have the final chapters posted by Christmas, but if not, then they'll all be up after the New Year. And then, I can move on to other stories I've been putting off to finish this one. Until next time, don't fall asleep..._

* * *

CHAPTER 25

THE NIGHT THAT FREDDY KRUEGER DIED

The hair on the back of Jake's neck stood when he heard the screaming. It was loud, almost as if someone was screaming into his ear. The other people in the church could surely hear it, couldn't they?

"Is that Taylor?" Dustin asked. Jake turned back to his friend.

"I think it might be," Jake said before breaking into a run down the hall, Carla and Dustin close behind him.

"Where is it coming from?" Carla asked.

"I don't know," Jake answered as he rounded a corridor and descended a set of steps to the basement. "Damn this maze of a church!" he swore. When he reached the final steps, the screams became louder; they were close.

The hall at the bottom step was lined with doors on both sides; Jake began flinging open the doors on one side, while Dustin went down the row on the other and Carla ran ahead.

"Taylor?" Jake called out with each door he opened. Four doors he tried, but all of the rooms were empty.

"Down here!" Carla screamed. "I think it's this one, it's locked!"

Jake and Dustin hustled down to a door at the end and Jake tried jiggling the knob. "Back up!" Dustin screamed as he tried to Sparta-kick the middle of the door, with no results.

"No, you idiot! Don't aim for the middle of the door," Jake said, giving a mighty kick right next to the door knob, sending the door flying open, wood splinters soaring into the air.

Carla was the first one to rush into the room, where she saw Taylor huddled underneath a bench, still screaming loudly!

"Taylor, sweetie, it's alright, we're here," Carla said as she grabbed Taylor by the shoulders and pulled her out from under the bench. Taylor fought and struggled but stopped once Carla had her in her arms.

Jake saw confusion on Taylor's face and bent down to look her directly in the eye. "What happened?"

Taylor was silent for a moment, catching her breath and taking in her surroundings. "I don't know. I was in the..." Taylor trailed off as she remembered that Randal had been with her. "Randal!" she screamed. "Where's Randal?"

"He's outside, in my mom's car," Jake explained. "Why?"

"I think Freddy has him!"

Randal threw another ball of fire at Krueger. Krueger vanished and the ball hit nothing but the wall behind where he had stood.

"Fight back, you coward!" Randal screamed at the top of his lungs. "Fight back!" The only response was the echoing of his own words; the hall was filled with silence.

Feeling weak, Randal collapsed to his knees and cradled the burns on his neck. He pulled his hand away slightly bloody, but nothing life-threatening, it seemed. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't a crippling pain; just annoying and uncomfortable, like a wasp sting. Or a dozen of them.

"That's going to really hurt when I wake up," he told himself.

"AH-HAHAHAHAHA!" Freddy's laugh reverberated throughout the hall, sending a chill up Randal's spine.

"If I wake up," he added as an afterthought.

There was a loud groaning behind him. Randal craned his neck and saw the large wooden doors open up behind him, the long stretch of hallway he had come down before lay before him, now lit by flickering lights. Randal stepped towards it, but before he passed through them, he smirked to himself.

"Nice try, Krueger," Randal thought aloud. "Not falling for that one again." Randal slammed the doors shut, but barely a heartbeat passed before the doors exploded out in a shower of fragments and splinters. Randal closed his eyes and was knocked to his back, wood splinters embedded in his suit, face, and hands. His breath was gone, and he took a moment to get it back.

"What the shit?" Randal forced his eyes open, too stunned to move. It was dark now; the church was gone, and he was lying on something cold. He placed his hands on the ground and winced at the pain; his hand was full of wood splinters. He tried to use his powers to burn the splinters away, but he was having difficulty trying to use them.

"What the hell? Why aren't they working?"

Frustrated, he began gingerly plucking as many splinters as he could from his hands; when he was fairly certain he had them all, he crawled onto his stomach and looked around.

He was lying in a dirt lot, in a part of town that was eerily familiar. A set of train tracks was nearby, and the sound of a distant, strangely distorted train horn reached his ears, and he realized he was in the industrial district.

He knew exactly where he was, and he was afraid of what he would see when he turned around. But he looked, and sure enough, the factory was towering into the dark sky behind him.

"Son of a bitch!"

Randal got to his feet and, despite every instinct telling him not to, walked towards the towering structure. He found a door and opened it, stepping inside a small lobby.

It was different than the way he had seen it before, dark and blackened by fire. No, this time it was new and vibrant, the walls painted light blue, pictures hung from them. Chairs sat unoccupied and the lights above shone brightly. A receptionist desk filled the middle of the lobby, with a typewriter and a stack of papers cluttering the top.

Randal walked over to the desk and picked up a folder that caught his eye. A stamped label across the top read "Freddy Krueger." Randal opened the folder and saw a photograph of a young man in his mid-twenties, short blond hair lying atop his head, and a beard so thin that it was barely visible.

Most of the information was stuff he already knew about Krueger: he had been a custodian at the factory back in the sixties, taking the job to help support his newborn daughter while his wife taught school. The residence was 1428 Elm Street, the house currently occupied by his girlfriend, which he also knew. And down at the bottom of the sheet, stamped in bold red letters, "EMPLOYMENT TERMINATED." Next to it was scribbled, in red ink, "10/31/1966."

Randal recognized that as the date Krueger was arrested. His trial would begin the next year. Randal flipped the pages, and found something curious: a newspaper clipping, dated 12/24/1967. The headline screamed:

KRUEGER FREED ON TECHNICALITY!

SPRINGWOOD SLASHER ACQUITED OF MURDER!

There was a sound of pages flapping, and Randal felt the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He looked up and noticed a calendar flapping on the desk. The month read December, and the days were all crossed off up to the 24th.

"No, that can't be..." That was today's date. Or at least, the today that Randal was experiencing. Another significant event happened the day Krueger was freed: it was also the day he was killed.

The crunch of dirt and gravel outside alerted Randal to the presence of cars. Several doors opened and slammed shut, and there was the yelling of dozens of people just outside the doors. The cries of men and women, young and old, came through the walls.

"Come on out, Krueger! You bastard!"

"We know you're in there!"

Randal backed away from the door as the angry parents began pounding on it. The thud of someone throwing their full body weight against the door filled the entire building with a loud, reverberating echo.

"Uh oh," Randal gasped.

"You killed my daughter! I'm going to kill you!"

"Krueger's not in here!" Randal screamed, hoping that might deter them. "I don't know where he is!"

"I heard him!" a woman shouted. "He's in there!"

_Oh shit, they think I'm Freddy..._

Randal turned and ran through the doors at the other end of the room, deeper into the factory. He ran down a long hallway, as fast as his body would let him go. At the end of the hall was a massive metal door. Randal shoved the metal bar that should have opened the door, but the door didn't move.

Behind him, he heard the sound of the front door giving way and the angry sounds of the screaming parents became louder and louder.

"Oh hell, they're coming!" Randal gave a mighty kick and the door flung open. Without looking backwards, he ran through the door and down a set of spiral steps. The steps came out on a massive catwalk above a maze of boilers and generators. He could already feel his clothes sticking to his skin as he made his was down the catwalk towards a massive ladder that led down into the boilers. He slid down the ladder and took shelter behind one of the boilers. Above him, he heard the parents making their way down the catwalk.

"He's got to be here somewhere! Find him, and don't let him get away!"

Randal looked up and saw a uniformed police officer, young with a full head of dark hair, standing next to another man with long hair, dark, underneath a light-colored fedora and coke-bottle glasses. The man in the fedora was speaking.

"Be careful, Don. He may have Jo-Ann and Melvin down here."

"If they're still alive, Ed, we'll find them."

Randal watched as the group made their way towards the ladder, the officer climbing down first. Randal took the opportunity and ran towards the back of the room, where a corner office lay next to a massive loading bay door. Thinking that might be a good place to hide, Randal made a line for the office and shut the door quietly behind him.

Relieved, he slid to the floor and tried to catch his breath.

"Tag, you're it!" Randal opened his eyes, and found himself staring straight at Freddy Krueger's ugly, smirking, and wholly human, face. Before Randal could scream, Krueger had thrust the bladed hand into his face!

...

Taylor was the first one out the door of the church, hustling down the icy steps and sliding as she hit the sidewalk at speed. Once she regained her balance, she ran to the parking lot where Shelby stood next to the Escalade, Jake, Dustin, and Carla rushing behind her.

"What's going on?" Shelby asked. "Is Becky alright?"

Taylor ignored her and began pulling on the car door. "Randal!" she screamed. She peered through the window and saw Randal lying on the seat, neck covered in blood. "RANDAL!" She pried on the door again, but it still didn't budge; it had frozen shut. "Help me!"

Jake got in next to her and began pulling on the handle with everything he had. "Shit, it's frozen!"

"How could it have frozen? It's not that cold, and you were only inside for five minutes," Shelby said confused.

"Here," Dustin said. He began slamming his body against the door, sending chunks of ice to the ground before giving a mighty heave and opening the door, sending more ice to the ground. Taylor jumped inside the car and began slapping Randal's face.

"Randy, baby, wake up!" she cried. She cleared the blood away from his neck, and saw four small cuts along his throat, and the smell of burnt flesh reached her nostrils.

"Randal, wake the fuck up!"

...

Randal opened the door, Krueger's blade to his neck, threatening to dig deep and end his life with the flick of the wrist. Outside the office, Randal found himself face-to-face with a whole group of pissed off people, the police officer at the front of them all, gun drawn and aimed right at him.

"Let him go, Krueger!" the officer yelled.

"Please, I-" Randal started to say, but was cut off by the officer's scream.

"Stay calm, Melvin!" The officer leveled the gun at Krueger. "Everything is going to be fine."

_Melvin? My name isn't Melvin._ Randal tried to ignite his powers again, but there was still nothing. What was going on? And why was this man calling him Melvin?

"I'm not-" Randal started to say, but Freddy pressed another blade to his neck.

"I've spent thirty years invading people's nightmares," Freddy whispered into Randal's ear. "Well, this is my own personal nightmare. And now, it's yours..."

Randal was confused by what he was saying, but suddenly, Freddy was gone. But before he could move, he realized he had a young boy in his arms, not much younger than him, kneeling down in front of him. Randal was horrified to discover he was now dressed in the red-and-green sweater and the bladed glove adorned his right hand. Two blades were pressed to the boy's neck, almost slicing into it. It felt like Randal was a spectator in Freddy's own body.

"Take another step, Thompson, and the boy dies!" Randal screamed in Freddy's voice, much to his own surprise. The officer, Thompson, stopped in his tracks. "Put the gun away!"

Don stared at Randal for a long moment. Don stared back and, after a tense moment, uncocked the weapon and lowered it.

"Fool!" Randal screamed in Freddy's voice. In a quick motion, Randal's fingers twitched, sending the blades deep into the boy's neck, and causing a cascade of blood to flow down his chest. The only sound was the blood dripping to the floor. But the silence was suddenly broken by a man screaming, "NOOOOOOO!" This was followed shortly afterward by the shattering of glass and a WHOOSH of flames.

"Goddamnit, who threw that?" Don screamed. Randal's eyes darted to the side and he saw the man in the fedora lighting a Molotov.

"Burn in Hell, Freddy!" he screamed at the murderer. He launched the Molotov right at Randal. Before Randal could move, the Molotov hit him square on the cheek, glass shattering, and the whole thing exploded in his face!

...

"Randal, wake the fuck up!" Taylor cried. "He's not breathing!"

"I got it!" Jake yelled. "Taylor, grab his head, help me get him out of the car!" Taylor grabbed Randal by the shoulders and began pushing him out the door while Jake pulled. Dustin got in the middle and took over the shoulders once Randal was fully out.

"On three, drop him in the snow!"

"Falling in the dream...!" Dustin caught on.

"Will it work?" Shelby asked.

"I don't know," Jake answered. "One, two..."

...

"THREE!"

Randal felt the heat of the flames lick his face, and he suddenly started falling to the ground. The faces of the parents rushed to him, and Randal felt something bite his side. He started to clutch at it, but there was nothing there. The ground was white now, and cold. The faces transformed from those of the angry parents to familiar ones, friendly ones.

"Randal!" he heard his name called, but it was distant, faint, echoy. "Randal!"

"Is he alive?" came another familiar voice.

"Somebody go get my mom, quick!"

A chubby face covered in beautiful blonde hair came into his fuzzy field of view, and Randal smiled.

"Hey, baby," he said weakly.

A smile finally crossed Taylor's face, but tears still fell from her eyes. "You're alive... I thought you were..."

"Me too," Randal breathed shakily. Even with his blurry vision, Randal could tell that Taylor's face was scrunched up, about to cry again. "Baby, what's wrong? I made it out, I'm alive." He suddenly became aware of the pain in his face. "Oh God, my face... It fucking hurts."

"You're going to be just fine," Taylor said, her voice shaking. Even as she spoke, Randal could tell she was lying.

"I know," he lied back. He couldn't feel the pain anymore, but he couldn't feel anything at the moment, either. He felt the darkness encroaching on his vision, and he gripped Taylor's hand tightly. "You look like you could use some sleep..." Randal started to say, but he was so exhausted that his words trailed off.

Before the final word left his mouth, his whole body relaxed, and he let the darkness take him. The last thing he heard was Taylor screaming his name, before bursting into tears again.

_To be continued..._

_Soon..._


End file.
